Psychological medicine
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Psychological medicine · Apr 2013
Aberrant intrinsic brain activity and cognitive deficit in first-episode treatment-naive patients with schizophrenia.
Given the important role of the default mode network (DMN) in cognitive function and the well-known neurocognitive deficit in schizophrenia, it is intriguing to examine systematically the relationship between neurocognitive dysfunction and aberrant intrinsic activities, and also functional connectivity, of the DMN in patients with schizophrenia. Method First-episode, treatment-naive patients with schizophrenia (FES) (n = 115) and healthy controls (n = 113) underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans and neurocognitive tests. Intrinsic neural activities evaluated by using the fragment amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (fALFF) and the resting-state functional connectivity assessed by seed-based correlational analysis were compared between patients and controls. Aberrant intrinsic activities and DMN connectivity in patients were then correlated to neurocognitive performance and clinical symptoms. ⋯ These associations between neurocognitive dysfunction and aberrant intrinsic activities, and also functional connectivity, of the DMN in patients with schizophrenia may provide important insights into the neural mechanism of the disease.