Department of Molecular Neuroimaging, Molecular Imaging Center, National Institute of Radiological Sciences, 9-1, 4-chome, Anagawa,Inage-ku, Chiba 263-8555, Japan.
Schizophr Bull. 2010 May;36(3):642-7. doi: 10.1093/schbul/sbn132. Epub 2008 Oct 16.
Exercise and sports are increasingly being implemented in the management of schizophrenia. The process of action perception is as important as that of motor execution for learning and acquiring new skills. Recent studies have suggested that body-selective extrastriate body area (EBA) in the posterior temporal-occipital cortex is involved not only in static visual perception of body parts but also in the planning, imagination, and execution of actions. However, functional abnormality of the EBA in schizophrenia has yet to be investigated. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with a task designed to activate the EBA by sports-related actions, we aimed to elucidate functional abnormality of the EBA during observation of sports-related actions in patients with schizophrenia. Twelve schizophrenia patients and 12 age-sex-matched control participants participated in the study. Using sports-related motions as visual stimuli, we examined brain activations during observation of context-congruent actions relative to context-incongruent actions by fMRI. Compared with controls, the patients with schizophrenia demonstrated diminished activation in the EBA during observation of sports-related context-congruent actions. Furthermore, the EBA activation in patients was negatively correlated with the severity of negative and general psychopathology symptoms measured by the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. Dysfunction of the EBA might reflect a difficulty in representing dynamic aspects of human actions and possibly lead to impairments of simulation, learning, and execution of actions in schizophrenia.
锻炼和运动越来越多地被应用于精神分裂症的治疗。运动执行过程与动作感知过程对学习和掌握新技能同样重要。最近的研究表明，后颞枕叶的躯体选择性额下回（EBA）不仅参与了身体部位的静态视觉感知，还参与了动作的规划、想象和执行。然而，精神分裂症患者 EBA 的功能异常尚未得到研究。我们使用与运动相关动作激活 EBA 的功能磁共振成像（fMRI）技术，旨在阐明精神分裂症患者观察运动相关动作时 EBA 的功能异常。12 名精神分裂症患者和 12 名年龄、性别匹配的对照组参与者参与了这项研究。我们使用运动相关的动作作为视觉刺激，通过 fMRI 检查了观察与运动相关的动作时，与上下文不一致的动作相比，大脑的激活情况。与对照组相比，精神分裂症患者在观察与运动相关的上下文一致的动作时，EBA 的激活减少。此外，患者的 EBA 激活与阳性和阴性综合征量表（Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale）测量的阴性和一般精神病症状的严重程度呈负相关。EBA 的功能障碍可能反映了在代表人类动作的动态方面存在困难，这可能导致精神分裂症患者在动作的模拟、学习和执行方面出现障碍。
