Abstract
Schizophrenia is often considered to be a disconnection syndrome. The abnormal interactions between large-scale functional brain networks result in cognitive and perceptual deficits. The present study investigated event-related functional connectivity networks to compare facial processing in individuals with and without schizophrenia. Faces and tables were presented to participants, and event-related phase synchrony, represented by the phase lag index (PLI), was calculated. In addition, cortical oscillatory dynamics may be useful for understanding the neural mechanisms underlying the disparate cognitive and functional impairments in schizophrenic patients. Therefore, the dynamic graph theoretical networks related to facial processing were compared between individuals with and without schizophrenia. Our results showed that event-related phase synchrony was significantly reduced in distributed networks, and normalized clustering coefficients were significantly increased in schizophrenic patients relative to those of the controls. The present data suggest that schizophrenic patients have specific alterations, indicated by increased local connectivity in gamma oscillations during facial processing.
Highlights
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder often characterized by abnormal social behavior, such as difficulty understanding and dealing with social interactions
The goal of the present study was to clarify the characteristics of facial processing in schizophrenia patients by analyzing phase synchronization and the www.impactjournals.com/oncotarget graph theoretical network of the gamma band
The results of this study support the hypothesis that patients with schizophrenia are characterized by dysfunctions in the long-range coordination of neural activity and local connectivity of the graph theoretical network, as indicated by significant reductions in event-related phase synchrony and increases in event-related normalized clustering coefficients during facial processing
Summary
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder often characterized by abnormal social behavior, such as difficulty understanding and dealing with social interactions. Several lines of research have provided evidence for impaired facial processing in schizophrenia. In terms of the underlying neural correlates of facial processing in schizophrenia, abnormities in the frontal and temporal lobes seem to prevail [1], including reduced activation and volume of the fusiform facial area [2, 3]. In response to neutral faces, schizophrenia patients show hyper-activations in the frontal and cingulate areas and in the basal ganglia [4]. Schizophrenia www.impactjournals.com/oncotarget patients show more activation in the left insula while performing facial processing tasks [5]. Eventrelated potential results show that the face-specific N170 is decreased in schizophrenia patients [6,7,8,9,10]
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