title: Reduced prefrontal activation during a verbal fluency task in Chinese-speaking patients with schizophrenia as measured by near-infrared spectroscopy.
abstract: Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) has been applied to examine the possible functional alternations during the performance of cognitive tasks in schizophrenia. With this technique, previous studies have observed that patients with schizophrenia are often associated with reduced brain activation in the prefrontal cortex during the verbal fluency task (VFT) of the English version or the Japanese version. However, it remains unclear whether there is a brain functional impairment in Chinese-speaking patients with schizophrenia. In this study, we designed a Chinese version of the VFT and performed a multichannel NIRS study in a large group of patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls. We investigated brain activation during the task period of the Chinese version of the VFT within a schizophrenia group and a healthy group, respectively, and compared the relative changes between the two groups. Our results confirmed that Chinese-speaking patients with schizophrenia had significantly lower brain activation in the prefrontal cortex and superior temporal cortex when compared with healthy controls. Such findings based on the NIRS data provided us reliable evidences about brain functional deficits in the Chinese-speaking patients with schizophrenia.
authors.affiliation: Peking University Sixth Hospital, Beijing, China; Peking University Institute of Mental Health, Beijing, China; Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Ministry of Health (Peking University), Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Wenxiang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Quan
authors.affiliation: China Academy of Telecommunication Research of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Tongning
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: School of Information and Communication Engineering, Beijing Information Science and Technology University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Zhaohua
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: School of Information and Communication Engineering, Beijing Information Science and Technology University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Yuduo
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Peking University Sixth Hospital, Beijing, China; Peking University Institute of Mental Health, Beijing, China; Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Ministry of Health (Peking University), Beijing, China. Electronic address: dongwentian@bjmu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Wentian
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Dong
authors.affiliation: China Academy of Telecommunication Research of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Beijing, China. Electronic address: lvbin@catr.com.
authors.forename: Bin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Lv
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D044466:Asian People; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002681:China; D005260:Female; D006454:Hemoglobins / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010700:Phonetics; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000378:metabolism*; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000378:metabolism*; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D019265:Spectroscopy, Near-Infrared; D013060:Speech / Q000502:physiology*; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000378:metabolism; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D006454:Hemoglobins
keywords: Chinese version verbal fluency test; Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS); Prefrontal cortex; Schizophrenia