Altered fronto–limbic activity in children and adolescents with familial high risk for schizophrenia

Le résumé fourni par la source

Early symptoms of schizophrenia tend to emerge during adolescence, which is a critical period for development of executive and emotional processing. While individuals with familial high risk (FHR) for schizophrenia may show cognitive and emotional changes, the neural mechanisms underlying the development of these changes remain unclear. The goal of this study was to identify functional differences in fronto-striato-limbic regions in children with FHR. Functional MRI data was collected from 21 children with a first-degree family member with schizophrenia and 21 controls without FHR. Participants performed an emotional oddball task requiring both selective attention and suppression of task-irrelevant emotional information. During selective attention, the group with FHR showed enhanced activation in inferior frontal gyrus and caudate, with decreases in middle frontal gyrus and insular activation. The FHR group also showed greater age-related recruitment of anterior cingulate, temporal and occipital cortical areas during selective attention. During emotional processing, the FHR group showed decreased anterior cingulate activation, with decreased age-related recruitment of inferior frontal, parietal and occipital areas. The results suggest that FHR for schizophrenia may be associated with abnormal hyperactivation and hypoactivation of the neural circuitry engaged during executive and emotional processing and with age-related changes in neural recruitment during adolescence.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.