Aberrant activity and connectivity of the posterior superior temporal sulcus during social cognition in schizophrenia.

Aberrant activity and connectivity of the posterior superior temporal sulcus during social cognition in schizophrenia.
Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2016 Oct 21;
Authors: Mier D, Eisenacher S, Rausch F, Englisch S, Gerchen MF, Zamoscik V, Meyer-Lindenberg A, Zink M, Kirsch P
Abstract
Schizophrenia is associated with significant impairments in social cognition. These impairments have been shown to go along with altered activation of the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS). However, studies that investigate connectivity of pSTS during social cognition in schizophrenia are sparse. Twenty-two patients with schizophrenia and 22 matched healthy controls completed a social-cognitive task for functional magnetic resonance imaging that allows the investigation of affective Theory of Mind (ToM), emotion recognition and the processing of neutral facial expressions. Moreover, a resting-state measurement was taken. Patients with schizophrenia performed worse in the social-cognitive task (main effect of group). In addition, a group by social-cognitive processing interaction was revealed for activity, as well as for connectivity during the social-cognitive task, i.e., patients with schizophrenia showed hyperactivity of right pSTS during neutral face processing, but hypoactivity during emotion recognition and affective ToM. In addition, hypoconnectivity between right and left pSTS was revealed for affective ToM, but not for neutral face p...

Source: European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience - October 24, 2016 Category: Psychiatry Tags: Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci Source Type: research