Am I hallucinating or is my fusiform cortex activated? Functional activation differences in schizophrenia patients with and without hallucinations

• Autores: Katharina Kunzelmann, Matthias Grieder, Claudia van Swam, Philipp Homan, Stephanie Winkelbeiner, Daniela Hubl, Thomas Dierks
• Localización: European journal of psychiatry, ISSN 0213-6163, Vol. 33, Nº 1, 2019, págs. 1-7
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Background and Objectives: Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) as well as aberrant language functioning, i.e. deficits in verbal fluency (VF) are common symptoms in patients with schizophrenia. The relationship between deficits in VF and AVH is rarely studied. In previous imaging studies, activation patterns during VF differed between patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls, independent of AVH phenomenology. However, activation patterns were not investigated for patients with and without AVH in separate groups. We hypothesized that there would be a difference in activation patterns between healthy controls and patients with schizophrenia, but not between hallucinating and non-hallucinating patients.

    Methods: In the current study, we included 31 participants in three groups: patients with schizophrenia and AVH, patients with schizophrenia without AVH, and healthy controls without AVH. All subjects performed a VF task while functional activation was measured by bloodoxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Task-dependent activation was compared between the three groups.