Altered medial prefrontal activity during dynamic face processing in schizophrenia spectrum patients

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychiatry
• Cognitive Science

Background:

• Facial emotion processing deficits are common in schizophrenia, impacting functional outcomes and symptom severity.
• Previous neuroimaging studies used demanding tasks and static images, limiting ecological validity.
• Dynamic social stimuli and passive viewing offer a more ecologically valid approach to studying face processing in schizophrenia.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate neural activity during face processing in schizophrenia using functional MRI (fMRI).
• To compare brain responses to dynamic facial expressions between patients and healthy controls.
• To explore the neural underpinnings of social cognition deficits in schizophrenia.

Main Methods:

• fMRI was employed to scan 25 patients with schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder and 21 healthy controls.
• Participants viewed dynamic videos of angry and neutral facial expressions, alongside a non-biological baseline.
• A passive viewing paradigm was used to minimize cognitive demands.

Main Results:

• Schizophrenia patients exhibited significantly reduced deactivation in the medial prefrontal cortex (including the anterior cingulate) compared to controls.
• Patients showed decreased activation in the left cerebellum during face viewing.
• Weaker medial prefrontal deactivation was observed in patients when viewing angry faces relative to baseline.

Conclusions:

• Reduced anterior cingulate deactivation in schizophrenia may contribute to heightened perception of social threat.
• Altered neural responses to faces in schizophrenia highlight potential targets for therapeutic interventions.
• Future fMRI research on social cognition in schizophrenia can guide the development of novel treatments.