Abnormal function of the brain system supporting motivated attention in medicated patients with schizophrenia: an fMRI study

• Published in: Psychological medicine 2006-08, Vol.36 (8), p.1097-1108
• Main Authors: LIDDLE, PETER F., LAURENS, KRISTIN R., KIEHL, KENT A., NGAN, ELTON T. C.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acoustic Stimulation; Adult; Adult and adolescent clinical studies; Antipsychotic Agents - therapeutic use; Arousal - drug effects; Arousal - physiology; Attention - drug effects; Attention - physiology; Biological and medical sciences; Brain; Brain - drug effects; Brain - physiopathology; Brain Mapping; Cognition & reasoning; Drugs; Female; Goals; Humans; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; Limbic System - drug effects; Limbic System - physiopathology; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Medical sciences; Motivation; Neocortex - drug effects; Neocortex - physiopathology; Nerve Net - drug effects; Nerve Net - physiopathology; Neurosciences; NMR; Nuclear magnetic resonance; Original Article; Pitch Discrimination - drug effects; Pitch Discrimination - physiology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Psychoses; Reference Values; Schizophrenia; Thalamus - drug effects; Thalamus - physiopathology
• ISSN: 0033-2917; 1469-8978
• DOI: 10.1017/S0033291706007677

Background. Patients with schizophrenia have an impaired ability to generate activity that is appropriate to current circumstances and goals. Method. We report a study using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine cerebral activity during a three-tone auditory oddball target detection task in a sample of 28 patients with schizophrenia and 28 healthy controls. Results. The patients exhibited significantly less activation in response to target stimuli relative to baseline in an extensive set of sites in association neocortex, paralimbic cortex, limbic structures and subcortical nuclei, yet demonstrated a normal level of activation in the sensorimotor cortex. Comparison of activity elicited by rare target stimuli with that elicited by equally rare novel stimuli makes it possible to distinguish cerebral activity associated with attention to behaviourally salient stimuli from activity associated with attending to other attention-capturing stimuli. This comparison revealed that the patients with schizophrenia also exhibited a deficit in activation of basal forebrain areas that mediate motivation during the processing of behaviourally salient stimuli, including the amygdala, ventral striatum, orbital frontal cortex and rostral anterior cingulate cortex. Conclusion. Patients with schizophrenia have a deficit in function of the brain system concerned with mediating motivation, in addition to a more general deficit in the cerebral response to attention-captivating stimuli.