Emotion processing in treatment-resistant schizophrenia patients treated with clozapine: An fMRI study.

Schizophr Res. 2015 Aug 5;

Authors: Potvin S, Tikàsz A, Lungu O, Dumais A, Stip E, Mendrek A

Abstract
OBJECTIVES: To examine the neural correlates of emotion processing in treatment-resistant patients with schizophrenia (SCZ-TR).
METHODS: Twenty-two SCZ-TR patients on clozapine, 24 schizophrenia patients on antipsychotics other than clozapine, and 39 healthy controls were scanned using functional neuroimaging while viewing positive, negative and neutral images.
RESULTS: Emotionally-laden images (positive and negative) elicited hyper-activations in the dorso-medial prefrontal cortex and left cerebellum in SCZ-TR patients, compared to the two other groups. Similarly, neutral images prompted hyper-activations in the cingulate gyrus in SCZ-TR patients, relative to the two other groups.
CONCLUSIONS: Treatment resistance is associated with neuro-functional hyper-activations in schizophrenia patients during emotion processing.

PMID: 26255082 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]