title: Abnormal functional lateralization of the sensorimotor cortex in patients with schizophrenia.
abstract: Previous neuroimaging studies have suggested that patients with schizophrenia fail to recruit appropriate focal patterns of cortical responses to cognitive tasks. We investigated whether patients with schizophrenia show a normal focal response to a simple motor task. Seven strongly right-handed patients with schizophrenia and seven strongly right-handed normal subjects performed motor tasks of increasing complexity. Patients were unable to recruit as focal a response even to a simple, automatic sequential finger movement task. They showed greater ipsilateral activation in the primary sensorimotor and lateral premotor regions and had a significantly lower laterality quotient than normal subjects. These phenomena increased with the complexity of the task. These results demonstrate a functional disturbance in the cortical motor circuitry of patients with schizophrenia.
authors.affiliation: Clinical Brain Disorders Branch, NIMH, NIH, NIMH Neuroscience Center at St. Elizabeth's, Washington, DC 20032, USA.
authors.forename: V S
authors.initials: VS
authors.lastname: Mattay
authors.forename: J H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Callicott
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bertolino
authors.forename: A K
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Santha
authors.forename: K A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Tallent
authors.forename: T E
authors.initials: TE
authors.lastname: Goldberg
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Frank
authors.forename: D R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Weinberger
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D013003:Somatosensory Cortex / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*