title: Single event-related changes in cerebral oxygenated hemoglobin using word game in schizophrenia.
abstract: Neuroimaging studies have been conducted using word generation tasks and have shown greater hypofrontality in patients with schizophrenia compared with healthy subjects. In this study, we compared the characteristics of oxygenated hemoglobin changes involved in both phonological and categorical verbal fluency between 35 outpatients with schizophrenia and 35 healthy subjects during a Japanese "shiritori" task using single-event-related near-infrared spectroscopy. During this task, the schizophrenic patients showed significantly smaller activation in the prefrontal cortex area than the controls. In addition, a significant positive correlation was obtained between oxygenated hemoglobin changes (prefrontal cortex area, inferior parietal area) and the severity of positive psychiatric symptoms. It is possible that hypofrontality of patients may be a diagnostic assistance tool for schizophrenia, and that the relationship between activation and positive syndrome scores may be of help in predicting functional outcome in patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychiatry, Kurume University, Kurume-City, Japan ; Cognitive and Molecular Research Institute of Brain Diseases, Kurume University School of Medicine, Kurume-City, Japan.
authors.forename: Ryo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Fujiki
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychiatry, Kurume University, Kurume-City, Japan ; Cognitive and Molecular Research Institute of Brain Diseases, Kurume University School of Medicine, Kurume-City, Japan.
authors.forename: Kiichiro
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Morita
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychiatry, Kurume University, Kurume-City, Japan ; Cognitive and Molecular Research Institute of Brain Diseases, Kurume University School of Medicine, Kurume-City, Japan.
authors.forename: Mamoru
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sato
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychiatry, Kurume University, Kurume-City, Japan ; Cognitive and Molecular Research Institute of Brain Diseases, Kurume University School of Medicine, Kurume-City, Japan.
authors.forename: Yuji
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yamashita
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychiatry, Kurume University, Kurume-City, Japan ; Cognitive and Molecular Research Institute of Brain Diseases, Kurume University School of Medicine, Kurume-City, Japan.
authors.forename: Yusuke
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kato
authors.affiliation: Cognitive and Molecular Research Institute of Brain Diseases, Kurume University School of Medicine, Kurume-City, Japan.
authors.forename: Yohei
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ishii
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychiatry, Kurume University, Kurume-City, Japan ; Cognitive and Molecular Research Institute of Brain Diseases, Kurume University School of Medicine, Kurume-City, Japan.
authors.forename: Yoshihisa
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shoji
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychiatry, Kurume University, Kurume-City, Japan.
authors.forename: Naohisa
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Uchimura
keywords: biological marker; hypofrontality; schizophrenia; single-event-related near-infrared spectroscopy; word production task