Department of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka, Japan.
Psychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2011 Mar;65(2):183-90. doi: 10.1111/j.1440-1819.2010.02179.x.
The aim of this study was to investigate whether magnetoencephalographic oscillations underlying working memory dysfunction in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) are related to psychopathological disturbance in patients with schizophrenia-like psychosis of epilepsy (SLPE).
Twelve patients with SLPE and 14 non-psychotic epilepsy controls participated in this study. Magnetoencephalography was recorded while patients performed a visual working memory (WM) task. Psychopathology was assessed using a four-factor structure of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale, and regression analyses were carried out to examine the relative impact of severity of psychopathology on WM-induced activation of the DLPFC.
We found that activation of the WM-compromising DLPFC, as indicated by increased alpha desynchronization in patients with SLPE compared with their non-psychotic counterparts, showed a positive linear correlation with disorganization symptom scores. This association remained significant after controlling for confounding factors, including age, task performance, IQ, and duration of psychosis.
Our results indicate that abnormal activation in prefrontal areas engaged during working memory may be critical to domains of psychopathology, in particular disorganized thought-processing in patients with SLPE.
本研究旨在探讨背外侧前额叶皮层（DLPFC）工作记忆功能障碍的脑磁图（MEG）振荡是否与癫痫样精神病（SLPE）患者的精神病理学紊乱有关。
本研究纳入了 12 例 SLPE 患者和 14 例非精神病性癫痫对照组。患者在执行视觉工作记忆（WM）任务时记录 MEG。使用Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale 的四因素结构评估精神病理学，通过回归分析检验精神病理学严重程度对 DLPFC WM 诱导激活的相对影响。
我们发现，与非精神病性癫痫对照组相比，SLPE 患者 WM 受损的 DLPFC 激活增加，表现为 alpha 去同步化，与思维紊乱症状评分呈正线性相关。在控制混杂因素（包括年龄、任务表现、智商和精神病持续时间）后，这种关联仍然显著。
我们的结果表明，工作记忆过程中参与的前额叶区域的异常激活可能是 SLPE 患者精神病理学的关键，特别是思维紊乱。
