title: Emotional words induce enhanced brain activity in schizophrenic patients with auditory hallucinations.
abstract: Neuroimaging studies of emotional response in schizophrenia have mainly used visual (faces) paradigms and shown globally reduced brain activity. None of these studies have used an auditory paradigm. Our principal aim is to evaluate the emotional response of patients with schizophrenia to neutral and emotional words. An auditory emotional paradigm based on the most frequent words heard by psychotic patients with auditory hallucinations was designed. This paradigm was applied to evaluate cerebral activation with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in 11 patients with schizophrenia with persistent hallucinations and 10 healthy subjects. We found a clear enhanced activity of the frontal lobe, temporal cortex, insula, cingulate, and amygdala (mainly right side) in patients when hearing emotional words in comparison with controls. Our findings are consistent with other studies suggesting a relevant role for emotional response in the pathogenesis and treatment of auditory hallucinations.
authors.affiliation: Psychiatric Unit, University of Valencia School of Medicine, Valencia, Spain. julio.sanjuan@uv.es
authors.forename: Julio
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sanjuan
authors.forename: Juan J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Lull
authors.forename: Eduardo J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Aguilar
authors.forename: Luis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Martí-Bonmatí
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Moratal
authors.forename: José C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Gonzalez
authors.forename: Montserrat
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Robles
authors.forename: Matcheri S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Keshavan
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000679:Amygdala / Q000503:physiopathology; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology; D002908:Chronic Disease; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000503:physiopathology; D006212:Hallucinations / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen