A broken filter: Prefrontal functional connectivity abnormalities in schizophrenia during working memory interference
Schizophrenia Research, 08/09/2012
Anticevic A et al. – The findings support the notion that observed distracter resistance deficit involves a breakdown in coupling between dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and distributed regions, encompassing both subcortical (thalamic/limbic) and control region connectivity.
Methods- 28 patients and 24 controls completed a delayed non-verbal WM task that included transient visual distraction during the WM maintenance phase.
- The authors computed DLPFC whole-brain task-based functional connectivity (tb-fcMRI) specifically during the maintenance phase in the presence or absence of distraction.
- Results revealed that patients failed to modulate tb-fcMRI during distracter presentation in both cortical and sub-cortical regions.
- Specifically, controls demonstrated reductions in tb-fcMRI between DLPFC and the extended amygdala when distraction was present.
- Conversely, patients failed to demonstrate a change in coupling with the amygdala, but showed greater connectivity with medio-dorsal thalamus.
- While controls showed more positive coupling between DLPFC and other prefrontal cortical regions during distracter presentation, patients failed to exhibit such a modulation.
