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Working memory and DLPFC inefficiency in schizophrenia: the FBIRN study.
S G Potkin1, J A Turner, G G Brown
1Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92617, USA. sgpotkin@uci.edu
Schizophrenia Bulletin
|December 2, 2008
Summary
Schizophrenia patients show inefficient dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) function during working memory tasks, indicated by increased brain activity. This suggests DLPFC inefficiency, not just altered activity, is key to understanding schizophrenia's cognitive challenges.
Area of Science:
- Neuroimaging
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Psychiatry
Background:
- Previous studies on chronic schizophrenia and working memory show mixed findings of prefrontal cortex (PFC) hyperactivity or hypoactivity.
- The Functional Imaging Biomedical Informatics Network (FIBIN) is developing methods for multisite functional imaging studies.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate working memory function in chronic schizophrenia using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
- To examine dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) activity patterns during a working memory task in individuals with schizophrenia and healthy controls.
Main Methods:
- Recruited 128 individuals with chronic schizophrenia and 128 matched healthy controls from 10 US universities.
- Utilized fMRI to measure brain activity (BOLD signal) in the DLPFC during the Sternberg Item Recognition Paradigm with varying memory loads (1, 3, 5 items).
- Analyzed mean BOLD signal change in the DLPFC during encoding and retrieval phases, considering performance metrics.
Main Results:
- Individuals with schizophrenia performed worse on the working memory task, with greater accuracy decreases and reaction time increases as memory load rose.
- The schizophrenic group exhibited significantly greater mean BOLD signal in the DLPFC compared to controls, especially at intermediate memory loads.
- Even when matched for accuracy, individuals with schizophrenia showed a hyperresponse in the DLPFC, suggesting inefficient neural processing.
Conclusions:
- The heightened BOLD signal change in the DLPFC from minimal to moderate memory loads was more pronounced in individuals with schizophrenia.
- This DLPFC hyperresponse persisted after controlling for covariates, supporting the hypothesis of inefficient DLPFC function in schizophrenia during working memory.
- Findings suggest DLPFC inefficiency, rather than simple hypo- or hyperactivity, is a more accurate model for understanding cognitive deficits in schizophrenia, shifting research focus to neural mechanisms of inefficiency.
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