Evidence for aberrant salience processing in unmedicated schizophrenia patients

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Evidence for aberrant salience processing in unmedicated schizophrenia patients Benjamin Wagner1*, Martin Voss1, Björn Schott1 and Joachim Behr1 1 Department of Psychiatry, Charité University, Germany The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is considered to be one of the core structures constituting a "salience-network", which enables switching between neural networks involved in task-processing and self-referential processes, respectively. Studies of various kinds point to a dysfunction of the salience network in schizophrenia, which in turn might lead to aberrant salience attribution to irrelevant events (Kapur, 2003; White, 2010). This disturbed dopamine based mechanism may explain clinical phenomena such as delusions or hallucinations (Heinz, 2010; Roiser, 2009; Walter, 2010). However, one major limitation of previous studies is the fact that they have been carried out in medicated patients. We aimed at investigating the processing of novel, thereby salient, but behaviourally irrelevant events in a group of unmedicated schizophrenia patients in an acute psychotic state using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The aim of the study was to further establish the connection between aberrant salience processing and positive symptoms, e.g. delusional perceptions. Compared to healthy controls, patients exhibited a significantly enhanced blood oxygenation level dependency (BOLD)-response to novel versus familiar oddballs in the right OFC, a brain region that has been previously linked to processing of salient stimuli. To our knowledge, this is the first evidence for hyperactivation of the OFC in an fMRI based task exploring salience processing in a group of unmedicated schizophrenia patients in an acute psychotic state. Thereby we provide substantial new evidence for the suggested link between aberrant salience attribution based upon chaotic dopaminergic signaling and clinical phenomena, i.e. positive symptoms Keywords: decision-making, Schizophrenia Conference: XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI), Palma, Mallorca, Spain, 25 Sep - 29 Sep, 2011. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Poster Sessions: Decision Making, Reward Processing & Response Selection Citation: Wagner B, Voss M, Schott B and Behr J (2011). Evidence for aberrant salience processing in unmedicated schizophrenia patients. Conference Abstract: XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI). doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2011.207.00402 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 24 Nov 2011; Published Online: 28 Nov 2011. * Correspondence: Dr. Benjamin Wagner, Department of Psychiatry, Charité University, Berlin, Germany, wagner_b@gmx.net Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Benjamin Wagner Martin Voss Björn Schott Joachim Behr Google Benjamin Wagner Martin Voss Björn Schott Joachim Behr Google Scholar Benjamin Wagner Martin Voss Björn Schott Joachim Behr PubMed Benjamin Wagner Martin Voss Björn Schott Joachim Behr Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.