multifaceted neurophysiological study on patients with schizophrenia

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K19735
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Psychiatric science
• Research Institution: Kyushu University
• Principal Investigator: Oribe Naoya 九州大学, 医学研究院, 特別教員 (70730498)
• Research Collaborator: UENO TAKEFUMI 肥前精神医療センター, 臨床研究部長 (00441668) ; KUGA HIRONORI 肥前精神医療センター, 脳生理・神経画像, 研究室員 (50639903) ; HIRANO YOJI 九州大学, 医学研究院, 助教 (90567497) ; ONITSUKA TOSHIAKI 九州大学, 医学研究院, 准教授 (00398059) ; KANBA SHIGENOBU 九州大学, 医学研究院, 教授 (50195187)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 統合失調症 / 脳磁図 / 機能的MRI / M170 / 顔認知 / 表情認知

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The aim of this study was to investigate neurophysiological findings, which might index the social dysfunctionas in patients with schizophrenia. We found that the amplitude of M170, which is one of the neural correlates of face processing measured by magnetoencephalography, was reduced in the patients. Also, we adopted the facial emotion stimuli, which are played by Japanese actor/actress, during the measurement of functional MRI. 32 pairs of pictures (Happy, Angry, Sad or Disgust) were shown and the subjects were required to push the button if the two pictures expressed same emotion. We found that the patients with schizophrenia showed reduced BOLD signals in the inferior frontal gyrus only to the disgust faces. These results suggest that schizophrenia patients have inferior frontal gyrus dysfunction in processing disgust faces. This dysfunction might underlie the paranoid notions in patients with schizophrenia.

Free Research Field

神経生理学