Functional connectivity when detecting rare visual targets in schizophrenia

Amy M. Jimenez, Junghee Lee, Michael F. Green, Jonathan K. Wynn

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

Individuals with schizophrenia demonstrate difficulties in attending to important stimuli (e.g., targets) and ignoring distractors (e.g., non-targets). We used a visual oddball task during fMRI to examine functional connectivity within and between the ventral and dorsal attention networks to determine the relative contribution of each network to detection of rare visual targets in schizophrenia. The sample comprised 25 schizophrenia patients and 27 healthy controls. Psychophysiological interaction analysis was used to examine whole-brain functional connectivity in response to targets. We used the right temporo parietal junction (TPJ) as the seed region for the ventral network and the right medial intraparietal sulcus (IPS) as the seed region for the dorsal network. We found that connectivity between right IPS and right anterior insula (AI; a component of the ventral network) was significantly greater in controls than patients. Expected patterns of within- and between-network connectivity for right TPJ were observed in controls, and not significantly different in patients. These findings indicate functional connectivity deficits between the dorsal and ventral attention networks in schizophrenia that may create problems in processing relevant versus irrelevant stimuli. Understanding the nature of network disruptions underlying cognitive deficits of schizophrenia may help shed light on the pathophysiology of this disorder.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)35-43
Number of pages9
JournalPsychiatry Research - Neuroimaging
Volume261
DOIs
StatePublished - 30 Mar 2017
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2017

Funding

This research was supported by a VA Career Development Award to Jonathan K. Wynn, Ph.D. and NIMH Grants MH43292 and MH065707 (PI: Michael F. Green, Ph.D.). Writing of this manuscript was supported by the Office of Academic Affiliations, Advanced Fellowship Program in Mental Illness Research and Treatment, Department of Veterans Affairs. For generous support, we also thank the Brain Mapping Medical Research Organization, Brain Mapping Support Foundation, Pierson-Lovelace Foundation, The Ahmanson Foundation, William M. and Linda R. Dietel Philanthropic Fund at the Northern Piedmont Community Foundation, Tamkin Foundation, Jennifer Jones-Simon Foundation, Capital Group Companies Charitable Foundation, Robson Family, and Northstar Fund. The authors thank Poorang Nori and Crystal Gibson for assistance in data collection. The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. These data were presented, in part, as a poster at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the Society for Research in Psychopathology.

FundersFunder number
Brain Mapping Medical Research Organization
Brain Mapping Support Foundation
Capital Group Companies Charitable Foundation
Jennifer Jones-Simon Foundation
Northern Piedmont Community Foundation
Northstar Fund
Pierson-Lovelace Foundation
Tamkin Foundation
William M. and Linda R. Dietel Philanthropic Fund
National Institute of Mental HealthMH43292, R01MH065707
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
Ahmanson Foundation

    Keywords

    • Attention
    • Oddball
    • Psychophysiological interaction
    • Salience
    • Target detection
    • fMRI

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