Altered engagement of attention and default networks during target detection in schizophrenia

Recent studies have implicated inappropriate engagement of functional brain networks in schizophrenia. This fMRI study examined task-induced activations and deactivations in 10 schizophrenia patients with prominent negative symptoms and 10 healthy controls during a simple target detection task. Group comparison revealed recruitment of distinct attentional networks during this task, with schizophrenia subjects activating the dorsal attention system and controls activating the executive network. Further, schizophrenia patients failed to deactivate posterior cingulate regions during the task, supporting recent studies of altered default mode processing. These findings support theories of dysfunctional recruitment of large-scale brain networks in schizophrenia.