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Published on: December 2, 2015
Abnormal superior temporal connectivity during fear perception in schizophrenia.
David I Leitman1, James Loughead, Daniel H Wolf
1Department of Psychiatry-Neuropsychiatry Program, Brain Behavior Laboratory, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104-4283, USA. leitman@mail.med.upenn.edu
Schizophrenia Bulletin
|June 14, 2008
Summary
Schizophrenia patients show impaired fear recognition due to abnormal brain connectivity. Specifically, disruptions in the affective appraisal circuit affect threat detection and emotional processing in the brain.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Psychiatry
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Patients with schizophrenia exhibit deficits in decoding facial affect, impacting social cognition.
- Previous neuroimaging studies link fear detection errors in schizophrenia to heightened amygdala activation within threat detection networks.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate functional connectivity differences within the affective appraisal circuit during fear identification in schizophrenia patients compared to healthy controls.
- To explore how interregional brain correlations relate to threat detection impairments in schizophrenia.
Main Methods:
- Utilized event-related functional neuroimaging and a novel CORANOVA procedure to analyze brain region of interest connectivity.
- Examined patterns of intercorrelations among brain regions activated during fear identification in both healthy individuals and schizophrenia patients.
Main Results:
- Healthy subjects showed robust correlations between medial structures (thalamus, amygdala) and frontal regions (middle frontal, inferior frontal, prefrontal cortex).
- Schizophrenia patients lacked significant correlations between medial and frontal regions, indicating disrupted connectivity.
- Patients exhibited increased correlations between occipital lingual gyrus and superior temporal gyrus compared to controls.
Conclusions:
- Schizophrenia-related impairments in threat detection may arise from abnormal stimulus integration within the affective appraisal circuit.
- Disrupted functional connectivity, particularly between frontal and medial brain regions, likely contributes to fear identification deficits in schizophrenia.
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