The effects of reality distortion syndrome on salient stimuli processing in patients with schizophrenia: An fMRI study

Michalopoulou, Panayiota G.; Giampietro, Vincent P.; Morley, Lucy A.; Azim, Adnan; Kapur, Shitij; Lykouras, Lefteris; Shergill, Sukhwinder S.

doi:10.1016/j.pscychresns.2010.04.010

« Previous Next »Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging
Volume 183, Issue 2 , Pages 93-98, 30 August 2010

The effects of reality distortion syndrome on salient stimuli processing in patients with schizophrenia: An fMRI study

Panayiota G. Michalopoulou
- Section on Schizophrenia, Imaging and Therapeutics, Department of Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, SE5 8AF, UK
- Cognition Schizophrenia Imaging Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, SE5 8AF, UK
- Second Department of Psychiatry “ATTIKON” General Hospital, 1 Rimini St., Athens, Greece
- Corresponding author. Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF, UK. Tel.: +44 020 7848 0356; fax: +44 020 7848 0350.
Vincent P. Giampietro
- Brain Image Analysis Unit, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, SE5 8AF, UK
Lucy A. Morley
- Cognition Schizophrenia Imaging Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, SE5 8AF, UK
Adnan Azim
- Cognition Schizophrenia Imaging Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, SE5 8AF, UK
Shitij Kapur
- Section on Schizophrenia, Imaging and Therapeutics, Department of Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, SE5 8AF, UK
Lefteris Lykouras
- Second Department of Psychiatry “ATTIKON” General Hospital, 1 Rimini St., Athens, Greece
Sukhwinder S. Shergill
- Cognition Schizophrenia Imaging Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, SE5 8AF, UK

Received 6 May 2009; received in revised form 8 April 2010; accepted 14 April 2010.

Abstract

Schizophrenia is associated with interpersonal difficulties related to impairments in the processing of facial emotional expressions. The aim of the present study was to identify brain regions associated with reality distortion syndrome reduction in a group of patients with schizophrenia during processing of emotionally salient stimuli. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure cerebral blood oxygenation changes during an implicit emotional task in 11 patients with schizophrenia, who were scanned twice with an interval of 6–8weeks. We found that reality distortion syndrome reduction was associated with increases in the activation of the affective division of the anterior cingulate and lateral prefrontal cortices. Our findings may indicate that changes in the activation of these regions during processing of emotionally salient stimuli may represent neural markers of patients' symptomatic improvement.