Skip Navigation



Cerebral Cortex Advance Access published online on April 24, 2009
Cerebral Cortex, doi:10.1093/cercor/bhp079
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Supplementary Data
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Hashimoto, R.-i.
Right arrow Articles by Wible, C. G.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Hashimoto, R.-i.
Right arrow Articles by Wible, C. G.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

An fMRI Study of Functional Abnormalities in the Verbal Working Memory System and the Relationship to Clinical Symptoms in Chronic Schizophrenia

Ryu-ichiro Hashimoto1,2,3,5, KangUk Lee1,2,3, Alexander Preus1,2,3, Robert W. McCarley1,24 and Cynthia G. Wible1,2,3

1 Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, MA 02215, USA, 2 Department of Psychiatry, Brockton VA Medical Center, MA 02301, USA, 3 Surgical Planning Laboratory, Brigham and Women's Hospital, MA 02115, USA, 4 VA Boston Healthcare System, Brockton Campus, Brockton, MA 02301, USA

Address correspondence to Ryu-ichiro Hashimoto, PhD, Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis, 202 Cousteau Place, Suite 250, Davis, CA 95618, USA. Email: rhashimoto{at}ucdavis.edu.

There has been evidence for functional abnormalities of the verbal working memory system in schizophrenia. Verbal working memory crucially involves the interplay between the anterior and posterior language systems, and previous studies have shown converging evidence for abnormalities in the posterior language system in schizophrenia. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging study, we measured cortical activity in chronic schizophrenic patients and matched healthy controls during auditory and visual verbal working memory tasks. We employed 1) regional analyses specifically targeting the posterior language system and 2) analyses of functional connectivity between anterior and posterior language regions. We performed these analyses separately for each memory stage and modality. In the regional analyses, the left sylvian–parietal–temporal (Spt) area consistently showed reduced activation during encoding and retrieval stages in schizophrenia. Magnitudes of activation in the left posterior superior temporal sulcus were correlated with the severity of delusions at every memory stage. Functional connectivity analyses revealed reduced connectivity between the left Spt and the anterior insula during the encoding of auditory words. In addition, the connectivity strength was correlated with the severity of auditory hallucinations. These findings identify abnormal components in the verbal working memory system and illustrate their possible overlap with the mechanisms of core schizophrenic symptoms.

Key Words: fMRI • functional connectivity • schizophrenia • verbal working memory

5 Current address: Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis, CA 95618, USA


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.