Functional neuroimaging in schizophrenia

Acknowledgments: This work was supported by NIMH grants P50 MH 66392-01, MH 60023, and MH 56489 to Dr. Buchsbaum and by NARSAD Young Investigator and NIMH MH 077146 awards to Dr. Mitelman.Facts box Functional imaging has shown decreases in resting activity and the amount of activation by cognitive tasks in the frontal lobe, temporal lobe, cingulate gyrus, and thalamus in schizophrenia. Decreases in activity appear in regions that also show decreases in volume when anatomical imaging techniques are used. The underlying etiology and pathogenesis of these activities and volume changes remain unclear. Psychotic symptoms include auditory and visual hallucinations, paranoid delusions or paranoid trends, ideas of reference, ideas of influence, catatonia, and atypical features such as complex perceptual distortions. Although a link between psychotic symptoms and basal ganglia, temporal lobe, and frontal lobe pathology is supported, symptoms appear to be variable after the onset of neuronal damage, and remission has also been reported. Treatment is largely symptomatic but links between brain region change and symptom change are being established. Brain function and schizophrenia Instruments for observing and assessing organ function have been technical eye-opening scientific advances in understanding of disease in the last 100 years. Although the uniform tissue composition and circulation-borne products of the liver and pancreas have made blood chemistry sampling and postmortem assessment fruitful approaches, the regional complexity and behavioral productions of the brain have made these methods less informative for the brain, the target organ of schizophrenia.