Motor-induced brain activation in cortical, subcortical and cerebellar regions in schizophrenic inpatients. A whole brain fMRI fingertapping study

Motor symptoms including neurological soft signs have been found to be more prevalent in schizophrenic patients. In addition, catatonic symptoms and neuroleptic treatment as well may influence cortical and subcortical motor organization in schizophrenia. The results of previous neuroimaging studies exploring motor function in patients with schizophrenia are inhomogenous reporting on a decreased activity in cortical motor regions in some studies and normal activity in others. Using fMRI, we studied 40 subjects performing a unilateral self-paced fingertapping task. Analyzing a general linear model of four groups, we compared patients with schizophrenia according to DSM-IV treated with olanzapine (OL; 10) or haloperidol (HA; 10) to healthy controls (HC; 10) and untreated patients (UN; 10). Brainvoyager software was used for data analyzing. In all groups, the contralateral motor cortex was significantly activated. Significant activation of the ipsilateral cerebellum was found in the UN group, the control group and the OL group. The contralateral basal ganglia were activated in UN and in controls. Motor-induced cortical and subcortical brain activation in HC was significantly higher than in patients with schizophrenia. UN with schizophrenia showed a significant overactivation than the other groups. In conclusion, we revealed a diminished activation in the patient group treated with neuroleptic drugs. This study outlines the importance of further fMRI studies to investigate interindividual activation differences under different conditions especially focusing on basal ganglia.