Centre de recherche, Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal, Montreal, Canada; Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada.
Centre de recherche, Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal, Montreal, Canada; Department of Neurosciences, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada.
Schizophr Res. 2017 Oct;188:68-74. doi: 10.1016/j.schres.2017.01.021. Epub 2017 Jan 14.
Working memory deficits have been widely reported in schizophrenia, and may result from inefficient binding processes. These processes, and their neural correlates, remain understudied in schizophrenia. Thus, we designed an FMRI study aimed at investigating the neural correlates of both passive and active binding in working memory in schizophrenia. Nineteen patients with schizophrenia and 23 matched controls were recruited to perform a working memory binding task, in which they were instructed to memorize three letters and three spatial locations. In the passive binding condition, letters and spatial locations were directly presented as bound. Conversely, in the active binding condition, words and spatial locations were presented as separated, and participants were instructed to intentionally create associations between them. Patients exhibited a similar performance to the controls for the passive binding condition, but a significantly lower performance for the active binding. FMRI analyses revealed that this active binding deficit was related to aberrant activity in the posterior parietal cortex and the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. This study provides initial evidence of a specific deficit for actively binding information in schizophrenia, which is linked to dysfunctions in the neural networks underlying attention, manipulation of information, and encoding strategies. Together, our results suggest that all these dysfunctions may be targets for neuromodulation interventions known to improve cognitive deficits in schizophrenia.
工作记忆缺陷在精神分裂症中被广泛报道，可能是由于绑定过程效率低下所致。这些过程及其神经相关性在精神分裂症中仍未得到充分研究。因此，我们设计了一项 fMRI 研究，旨在调查精神分裂症患者工作记忆中被动和主动绑定的神经相关性。我们招募了 19 名精神分裂症患者和 23 名匹配的对照者进行工作记忆绑定任务，他们被指示记住三个字母和三个空间位置。在被动绑定条件下，字母和空间位置直接呈现为绑定的。相反，在主动绑定条件下，单词和空间位置分开呈现，参与者被指示有意在它们之间建立联系。患者在被动绑定条件下的表现与对照组相似，但在主动绑定条件下的表现明显较差。FMRI 分析表明，这种主动绑定缺陷与顶后皮质和腹外侧前额叶皮质的异常活动有关。这项研究提供了精神分裂症中主动绑定信息的特定缺陷的初步证据，这与注意力、信息处理和编码策略的神经网络功能障碍有关。总之，我们的研究结果表明，所有这些功能障碍都可能是神经调节干预的目标，这些干预措施已知可以改善精神分裂症的认知缺陷。
