Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland.
Clinical Neuroscience Lab, Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland.
Psychol Med. 2018 Aug;48(11):1862-1871. doi: 10.1017/S0033291717003385. Epub 2017 Nov 27.
Recognition of communicative interactions is a complex social cognitive ability which is associated with a specific neural activity in healthy individuals. However, neural correlates of communicative interaction processing from whole-body motion have not been known in patients with schizophrenia (SCZ). Therefore, the current study aims to examine the neural activity associated with recognition of communicative interactions in SCZ by using displays of the dyadic interactions downgraded to minimalistic point-light presentations.
Twenty-six healthy controls (HC) and 25 SCZ were asked to judge whether two agents presented only by point-light displays were communicating or acting independently. Task-related activity and functional connectivity of brain structures were examined with General Linear Model and Generalized Psychophysiological Interaction approach, respectively.
HC were significantly more efficient in recognizing each type of action than SCZ. At the neural level, the activity of the right posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) was observed to be higher in HC compared with SCZ for communicative v. individual action processing. Importantly, increased connectivity of the right pSTS with structures associated with mentalizing (left pSTS) and mirroring networks (left frontal areas) was observed in HC, but not in SCZ, during the presentation of social interactions.
Under-recruitment of the right pSTS, a structure known to have a pivotal role in social processing, may also be of importance for higher-order social cognitive deficits in SCZ. Furthermore, decreased task-related connectivity of the right pSTS may result in reduced use of additional sources of information (for instance motor resonance signals) during social cognitive processing in schizophrenia.
识别交际互动是一种复杂的社会认知能力，与健康个体的特定神经活动有关。然而，精神分裂症（SCZ）患者中还没有从全身运动中识别交际互动的神经相关性。因此，本研究旨在通过使用二元互动降级为极简点光演示来检查与 SCZ 中交际互动识别相关的神经活动。
要求 26 名健康对照者（HC）和 25 名 SCZ 者判断两个仅通过点光显示呈现的代理是否在进行交流或独立行动。使用广义线性模型和广义心理生理相互作用方法分别检查任务相关的大脑结构活动和功能连接。
HC 比 SCZ 更有效地识别每种类型的动作。在神经水平上，与个体动作处理相比，HC 的右侧后颞上沟（pSTS）的活动更高。重要的是，在呈现社交互动时，HC 的右侧 pSTS 与心理化（左侧 pSTS）和镜像网络（左侧额叶区域）相关结构的连接增加，但 SCZ 则没有。
右侧 pSTS 的募集不足，该结构在社会处理中具有关键作用，也可能对 SCZ 中的高级社会认知缺陷很重要。此外，右侧 pSTS 的任务相关连接减少可能导致在 SCZ 中的社会认知处理过程中减少对额外信息源（例如运动共振信号）的使用。
