van de Ven Vincent, Rotarska Jagiela Anna, Oertel-Knöchel Viola, Linden David E J
Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, The Netherlands.
Laboratory of Neuroimaging, Department of Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, Goethe University, Frankfurt/Main 60528, Germany.
Neuroimage Clin. 2017 Apr 18;15:45-52. doi: 10.1016/j.nicl.2017.04.012. eCollection 2017.
Sensory perceptual processing deficits, such as impaired visual object identification and perceptual closure, have been reported in schizophrenia. These perceptual impairments may be associated with neural deficits in visual association areas, including lateral occipital cortex and inferior temporal areas. However, it remains unknown if such deficits can be found in the intrinsic architecture of the visual system. In the current study, we measured perceptual closure performance and resting-state functional connectivity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) in 16 schizophrenia patients and 16 matched healthy controls. We estimated intrinsic functional connectivity using self-organized grouping spatial ICA, which clusters component maps in the subject space according to spatial similarity. Patients performed worse than controls in the perceptual closure task. This impaired closure performance of patients was correlated with increased severity of psychotic symptoms. We also found that intrinsic connectivity of the visual processing system was diminished in patients compared to controls. Lower perceptual closure performance was correlated to lower visual cortical intrinsic connectivity overall. We suggest that schizophrenia is associated with impaired intrinsic connectivity of the visual system, and that it is a potential mechanism leading to impaired visual object perception. These findings contribute to increasing evidence for impairments of higher visual functions in schizophrenia.
在精神分裂症中已报告存在感觉知觉处理缺陷，如视觉物体识别和知觉闭合受损。这些知觉障碍可能与视觉联合区的神经缺陷有关，包括枕外侧皮质和颞下区域。然而，尚不清楚在视觉系统的内在结构中是否能发现此类缺陷。在当前研究中，我们使用功能磁共振成像（FMRI）对16名精神分裂症患者和16名匹配的健康对照者进行了知觉闭合表现和静息态功能连接性测量。我们使用自组织分组空间独立成分分析（ICA）估计内在功能连接性，该方法根据空间相似性在受试者空间中对成分图进行聚类。患者在知觉闭合任务中的表现比对照组差。患者这种受损的闭合表现与精神病症状严重程度增加相关。我们还发现，与对照组相比，患者视觉处理系统的内在连接性降低。总体而言，较低的知觉闭合表现与较低的视觉皮质内在连接性相关。我们认为精神分裂症与视觉系统内在连接性受损有关，并且这是导致视觉物体感知受损的潜在机制。这些发现为精神分裂症中高级视觉功能受损的证据增添了新内容。
