Yoon Jong H, Sheremata Summer L, Rokem Ariel, Silver Michael A
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University and Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Healthcare System Palo Alto, CA, USA.
Front Psychol. 2013 Oct 31;4:681. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00681.
Cognitive and information processing deficits are core features and important sources of disability in schizophrenia. Our understanding of the neural substrates of these deficits remains incomplete, in large part because the complexity of impairments in schizophrenia makes the identification of specific deficits very challenging. Vision science presents unique opportunities in this regard: many years of basic research have led to detailed characterization of relationships between structure and function in the early visual system and have produced sophisticated methods to quantify visual perception and characterize its neural substrates. We present a selective review of research that illustrates the opportunities for discovery provided by visual studies in schizophrenia. We highlight work that has been particularly effective in applying vision science methods to identify specific neural abnormalities underlying information processing deficits in schizophrenia. In addition, we describe studies that have utilized psychophysical experimental designs that mitigate generalized deficit confounds, thereby revealing specific visual impairments in schizophrenia. These studies contribute to accumulating evidence that early visual cortex is a useful experimental system for the study of local cortical circuit abnormalities in schizophrenia. The high degree of similarity across neocortical areas of neuronal subtypes and their patterns of connectivity suggests that insights obtained from the study of early visual cortex may be applicable to other brain regions. We conclude with a discussion of future studies that combine vision science and neuroimaging methods. These studies have the potential to address pressing questions in schizophrenia, including the dissociation of local circuit deficits vs. impairments in feedback modulation by cognitive processes such as spatial attention and working memory, and the relative contributions of glutamatergic and GABAergic deficits.
认知和信息处理缺陷是精神分裂症的核心特征和致残的重要根源。我们对这些缺陷的神经基础的理解仍不完整，很大程度上是因为精神分裂症损害的复杂性使得识别特定缺陷极具挑战性。在这方面，视觉科学提供了独特的机会：多年的基础研究已对早期视觉系统中结构与功能之间的关系进行了详细描述，并产生了复杂的方法来量化视觉感知并表征其神经基础。我们对相关研究进行了选择性综述，以说明精神分裂症视觉研究带来的发现机会。我们重点介绍了在应用视觉科学方法识别精神分裂症信息处理缺陷背后的特定神经异常方面特别有效的工作。此外，我们描述了利用心理物理学实验设计减轻普遍缺陷混淆的研究，从而揭示了精神分裂症中的特定视觉损害。这些研究有助于积累证据，表明早期视觉皮层是研究精神分裂症局部皮层回路异常的有用实验系统。神经元亚型及其连接模式在新皮层区域之间的高度相似性表明，从早期视觉皮层研究中获得的见解可能适用于其他脑区。我们最后讨论了结合视觉科学和神经成像方法的未来研究。这些研究有可能解决精神分裂症中迫切需要解决的问题，包括局部回路缺陷与空间注意力和工作记忆等认知过程在反馈调制中的损害之间的分离，以及谷氨酸能和γ-氨基丁酸能缺陷的相对作用。
