Exploring the social brain in schizophrenia: left prefrontal underactivation during mental state attribution.
OBJECTIVE
Evidence suggests that patients with schizophrenia have a deficit in "theory of mind," i.e., interpretation of the mental state of others. The authors used functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to investigate the hypothesis that patients with schizophrenia have a dysfunction in brain regions responsible for mental state attribution.


METHODS
Mean brain activation in five male patients with schizophrenia was compared to that in seven comparison subjects during performance of a task involving attribution of mental state.


RESULTS
During performance of the mental state attribution task, the patients made more errors and showed less blood-oxygen-level-dependent signal in the left inferior frontal gyrus.


CONCLUSIONS
To the authors' knowledge, this is the first functional MRI study to show a deficit in the left prefrontal cortex in schizophrenia during a socioemotional task.
Russell
T A
TA
Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, London, UK. t.sharma@iop.kcl.ac.uk
Rubia
K
K
Bullmore
E T
ET
Soni
W
W
Suckling
J
J
Brammer
M J
MJ
Simmons
A
A
Williams
S C
SC
Sharma
T
T
D000328:Adult; D004644:Emotions; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D012938:Social Perception