[Evaluation of personal traits, self, schizophrenia and cortical mid line structures]

There is no consensus about the definition of self however it is traditionally associated to identity. Many researchers are searching the neural regions that process self related information. Some studies have observed an activation of midline structures during the processing of information related to self. Self perturbations are not a part of diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia, nevertheless they are implicitly considered as part of the clinical picture. Some studies have tried to determine its perturbation using psychometric tests, but there are no studies that assess the association between brain activity and the performance of schizophrenics in tasks that require self-referential evaluations. The attempt to find a neural substrate for self is polemical. However, this model could be evaluated studying if, in schizophrenic patients, the tasks related to self processing are different from normal subjects at the psychophysiological and behavioral levels. This line of research could provide new diagnostic tools for early diagnosis and prevention in psychiatry.