Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Massachusetts Mental Health Center Division of Public Psychiatry, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Psychiatry, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
Schizophr Res. 2013 Dec;151(1-3):229-37. doi: 10.1016/j.schres.2013.09.023. Epub 2013 Oct 28.
Abnormalities in language and language neural circuitry are observed in schizophrenia (SZ). Similar, but less pronounced language deficits are also seen in young first-degree relatives of people with SZ, who are at higher familial risk (FHR) for the disorder than the general population. The neural underpinnings of these deficits in people with FHR are unclear.
Participants were 43 people with FHR and 32 comparable controls. fMRI scans were collected while participants viewed associated and unrelated word pairs, and performed a lexical decision task. fMRI analyses conducted in SPM8 examined group differences in the modulation of hemodynamic activity by semantic association.
There were no group differences in demographics, IQ or behavioral semantic priming, but FHR participants had more schizotypal traits than controls. Controls exhibited the expected suppression of hemodynamic activity to associated versus unrelated word pairs. Compared to controls, FHR participants showed an opposite pattern of hemodynamic modulation to associated versus unrelated word pairs, in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), right superior and middle temporal gyrus (STG) and the left cerebellum. Group differences in activation were significant, FWE-corrected for multiple comparisons (p<0.05). Activity within the IFG during the unrelated condition predicted schizotypal symptoms in FHR participants.
FHR for SZ is associated with abnormally increased neural activity to semantic associates within an inferior frontal/temporal network. This might increase the risk of developing unusual ideas, perceptions and disorganized language that characterize schizotypal traits, potentially predicting which individuals are at greater risk to develop a psychotic disorder.
精神分裂症（SZ）患者存在语言和语言神经回路异常。在 SZ 患者的一级亲属中，也观察到类似但不太明显的语言缺陷，他们比一般人群具有更高的疾病家族风险（FHR）。这些 FHR 人群的语言缺陷的神经基础尚不清楚。
参与者包括 43 名 FHR 患者和 32 名可比对照组。在参与者观看相关和不相关的词对并执行词汇决策任务时，采集 fMRI 扫描。在 SPM8 中进行的 fMRI 分析研究了语义关联对血液动力学活动调节的组间差异。
两组在人口统计学、智商或行为语义启动方面没有差异，但 FHR 参与者的精神分裂症特质比对照组多。与对照组相比，FHR 参与者在左额下回（IFG）、右颞上回和中回（STG）和左小脑对相关词对与不相关词对的血液动力学调节表现出相反的模式。FHR 参与者与对照组在左额下回（IFG）、右颞上回和中回（STG）和左小脑的激活存在显著差异，经多重比较的 FWE 校正（p<0.05）。无关条件下 IFG 内的活动预测了 FHR 参与者的精神分裂症特质症状。
SZ 的 FHR 与额下回/颞叶网络内语义联想的异常增加的神经活动有关。这可能会增加出现异常想法、感知和语言紊乱的风险，这些特征是精神分裂症特质的特征，可能预测哪些个体处于更大的发展精神病障碍的风险。
