Influence of emotional processing on working memory in schizophrenia

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychiatry
• Cognitive Psychology

Background:

• Schizophrenia research indicates intact immediate emotional responses but altered brain activation during emotional processing.
• The impact of emotional stimuli on working memory (WM) in schizophrenia remains unclear, especially concerning cognitive vulnerabilities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how emotional stimuli modulate working memory (WM) performance and brain activation in individuals with schizophrenia compared to healthy controls.
• To explore the relationship between anhedonia levels and the impact of emotion on behavioral and neural responses in schizophrenia.

Main Methods:

• Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to assess brain activity in 38 individuals with schizophrenia and 32 healthy controls during a 2-back WM task.
• Participants viewed blocks of neutral, happy, or fearful faces, with task performance and brain activation analyzed based on emotional content.

Main Results:

• Both groups exhibited improved accuracy but slower reaction times for negative stimuli compared to neutral stimuli.
• Individuals with schizophrenia displayed intact amygdala activation but altered dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and hippocampal activity during the emotional WM task.
• Higher social anhedonia scores in schizophrenia were linked to reduced amygdala response and increased DLPFC activity.

Conclusions:

• Emotional processing disturbances in schizophrenia are associated with altered emotion-cognition interactions, not solely with subjective emotional experience.
• Emotional arousal may disrupt dorsal-frontal control systems, impacting cognitive functions in schizophrenia.
• Findings highlight the complex interplay between emotion and cognition in schizophrenia, influenced by factors like anhedonia.