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Updated: Jul 16, 2025

Measurement of Fronto-limbic Activity Using an Emotional Oddball Task in Children with Familial High Risk for Schizophrenia
Published on: December 2, 2015
Auditory oddball hypoactivation in schizophrenia
Soichiro Nakahara1, Alie G Male2, Jessica A Turner3
1Clinical Translational Neuroscience Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, 92617, United States; Discovery Accelerator Venture Unit Direct Reprogramming, Astellas Pharma Inc, 21, Miyukigaoka, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8585, Japan.
Abstract:
Individuals with schizophrenia (SZ) show aberrant activations, assessed via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), during auditory oddball tasks. However, associations with cognitive performance and genetic contributions remain unknown. This study compares individuals with SZ to healthy volunteers (HVs) using two cross-sectional data sets from multi-center brain imaging studies. It examines brain activation to auditory oddball targets, and their associations with cognitive domain performance, schizophrenia polygenic risk scores (PRS), and genetic variation (loci). Both sample 1 (137 SZ vs. 147 HV) and sample 2 (91 SZ vs. 98 HV), showed hypoactivation in SZ in the left-frontal pole, and right frontal orbital, frontal pole, paracingulate, intracalcarine, precuneus, supramarginal and hippocampal cortices, and right thalamus. In SZ, precuneus activity was positively related to cognitive performance. Schizophrenia PRS showed a negative correlation with brain activity in the right-supramarginal cortex. GWA analyses revealed significant single-nucleotide polymorphisms associated with right-supramarginal gyrus activity. RPL36 also predicted right-supramarginal gyrus activity. In addition to replicating hypoactivation for oddball targets in SZ, this study identifies novel relationships between regional activity, cognitive performance, and genetic loci that warrant replication, emphasizing the need for continued data sharing and collaborative efforts.
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