title: Increased medial temporal lobe activation during the passive viewing of emotional and neutral facial expressions in schizophrenia.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Patients with schizophrenia show deficits in facial affect and facial identity recognition and exhibit structural and neurophysiological abnormalities in brain regions known to mediate these processes. Functional neuroimaging studies of neural responses to emotional facial expressions in schizophrenia have reported both increases and decreases in medial temporal lobe (MTL) activity in schizophrenia. Some of this variability may be related to the tasks performed and the baseline conditions used. Here we tested whether MTL responses to human faces in schizophrenia are abnormal when unconstrained by a cognitive task and measured relative to a low-level baseline (fixation) condition.
  
  
  METHODS
  15 patients with schizophrenia and 16 healthy control subjects underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while passively viewing human faces displaying fearful, happy, and neutral emotional expressions.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Relative to control subjects, the patients demonstrated (1) significantly greater activation of the left hippocampus while viewing all three facial expressions and (2) increased right amygdala activation during the initial presentation of fearful and neutral facial expressions.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In schizophrenia, hippocampal and amygdala activity is elevated during the passive viewing of human faces.
authors.affiliation: Massachusetts General Hospital, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02129, USA. dholt@partners.org
authors.forename: Daphne J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Holt
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Kunkel
authors.forename: Anthony P
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Weiss
authors.forename: Donald C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Goff
authors.forename: Christopher I
authors.initials: CI
authors.lastname: Wright
authors.forename: Lisa M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Shin
authors.forename: Scott L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Rauch
authors.forename: Jessica
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hootnick
authors.forename: Stephan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Heckers
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000679:Amygdala / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005239:Fear / Q000502:physiology; D006240:Happiness; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000503:physiopathology; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D012016:Reference Values; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology*