• Fanny Thomas, Cécile Gallea, Virginie Moulier, Noomane Bouaziz, Antoni Valero-Cabré, and Dominique Januel.
• Centre de Recherche Clinique, Établissement Public de Santé de Ville-Evrard, 202 avenue Jean Jaurès, 93330 Neuilly-sur-Marne, France; Cerebral Dynamics, Plasticity and Rehabilitation Group, FRONTLAB, Institut du Cerveau, CNRS UMR 7225, INSERM UMRS 1127, France. Electronic address: fanny.thomas1@gmail.com.
• Neuroscience. 2022 Dec 15; 507: 1131-13.

AbstractAuditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) in schizophrenia (SZ) have been associated with abnormalities of the left arcuate fasciculus and transcallosal white matter projections linking homologous language areas of both hemispheres. While most studies have used a whole-tract approach, here we focused on analyzing local alterations of the above-mentioned pathways in SZ patients suffering medication-resistant AVH. Fractional anisotropy (FA) was estimated along the left arcuate fasciculus and interhemispheric projections of the rostral and caudal corpus callosum. Then, potential associations between white matter tracts and SZ symptoms were explored by correlating local site-by-site FA values and AVH severity estimated via the Auditory Hallucinations Rating Scale (AHRS). Compared to a sample of healthy controls, SZ patients displayed lower FA values in the rostral portion of the left arcuate fasciculus, near the frontal operculum, and in the left and right lateral regions of the rostral portion of the transcallosal pathways. In contrast, SZ patients showed higher FA values than healthy controls in the medial portion of the latter transcallosal pathway and in the midsagittal section of the interhemispheric auditory pathway. Finally, significant correlations were found between local FA values in the left arcuate fasciculus and the severity of the AVH's attentional salience. Contributing to the study of associations between local white matter alterations of language networks and SZ symptoms, our findings highlight local alterations of white matter integrity in these pathways linking language areas in SZ patients with AVH. We also hypothesize a link between the left arcuate fasciculus and the attentional capture of AVH.Copyright © 2022 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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