Biological psychiatry
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Biological psychiatry · Apr 2018
Altered Gradients of Glutamate and Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid Transcripts in the Cortical Visuospatial Working Memory Network in Schizophrenia.
Visuospatial working memory (vsWM), which is impaired in schizophrenia, requires information transfer across multiple nodes in the cerebral cortex, including visual, posterior parietal, and dorsolateral prefrontal regions. Information is conveyed across these regions via the excitatory projections of glutamatergic pyramidal neurons located in layer 3, whose activity is modulated by local inhibitory gamma-aminobutyric acidergic (GABAergic) neurons. Key properties of these neurons differ across these cortical regions. Consequently, in schizophrenia, alterations in the expression of gene products regulating these properties could disrupt vsWM function in different ways, depending on the region(s) affected. ⋯ Differential alterations in layer 3 glutamate and GABA neurotransmission across cortical regions may contribute to vsWM deficits in schizophrenia.