[Good general cognitive skills on irony understanding in schizophrenia - an fMRi study]

In this study we have examined a group of schizophrenia patients during the understanding of irony tasks, who had normal IQ. 14 patients and 14 healthy control subjects were included, 15 irony and 15 control tasks were invertigated during an fMRI investigation. During the contextual phase patients had shown a higher activitation in different brain regions. The healthy controls had shown deactivitation during this phase, while this couldn't be seen in the patiens group. During the irony phase healthy subjects activated brain regions known as mentalisation areas, while patients didn't. Our results can support the view, that behind schizophrenia patients mentalisation deficit the contextual phase can play the central role.