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Updated: Apr 17, 2026
Measurement of Fronto-limbic Activity Using an Emotional Oddball Task in Children with Familial High Risk for Schizophrenia
Published on: December 2, 2015
F-18 fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography study of impaired emotion processing in first episode
Mona Choudhary1, Arvind Kumar1, Madhavi Tripathi2
1Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital (PGIMER-RMLH), Park Street, New Delhi, India.
Background:
Schizophrenia cases have been consistently shown to have behavioural and neurofunctional abnormalities but studies during early course are scarce. The present work assesses the performance of acute first episode schizophrenia cases on correlation of a facial emotion perception task with brain function using fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET).
Methods:
Twenty First episode schizophrenia cases and 20 matched healthy controls living in the community were enrolled. For cases, longest duration of illness was one year and treatment with neuroleptic did not exceed two weeks on the day of scan. To measure facial emotion perception (FEP) both groups were administered the Emotion battery from the Penn Computerized Battery followed by PET acquisition. SPM 8 analysis for group differences at p<0.001 was performed.
Results:
Schizophrenia subjects showed hypoactivation of bilateral prefrontal cortices and fusiform gyrii, with significant hyperactivation of bilateral basal ganglia and left precuneus. Positive correlation of metabolism in prefrontal cortex and performance indices on emotions domain was seen. No correlation of chlorpromazine equivalent days with metabolism in basal ganglia was observed.
Conclusions:
The performance of schizophrenia cases on FEP task was significantly impaired in comparison to the control group. Brain regions implicated in emotion processing showed hypometabolism in cases as compared to controls. Failure of schizophrenia cases to optimally recruit brain circuitry may be contributing to deficits on FEP task. These findings suggest inherent deficits in neural circuitry of emotion processing in schizophrenia; devoid of confounding effects of neuroleptics and duration of illness.
