Neural substrates of attention and social cognition impairment in schizophrenia

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Schizophrenia (Sz) is associated with deficits in face emotion recognition (FER) that contribute directly to overall impairments in social communication and global outcome. These deficits may be related to dysfunction of face processing regions of the brain such as posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS). This region is also known to interact closely with the ventral attention network (VAN), which involves temporoparietal junction (TPJ) and the dorsal attention network (DAN), which involves intraparietal sulcus (IPS) and frontal eye fields (FEF). This project investigates the role of TPJ-pSTS dysfunction in mediating facial social communication impairments in Sz. The project builds directly from the candidate's prior PhD studies investigating TPJ function in humans and monkeys, as well as his more recent studies during fellowship investigating pSTS dysfunction during naturalistic scene processing in Sz. The application proposes a 4-year career development program which will permit the candidate's development into an independent investigator in patient-oriented research focusing on social communication impairments in neuropsychiatric disorders. During the project, he will work directly with mentors who are experts in the areas of perception (Drs. Javitt and Ferrera), attention (Drs. Gottlieb and Curtis), and social cognition (Dr. Ochsner), and will pursue integrated didactics and research focusing on the relationship between impairments in social communication and impairments in perception, attention and social cognition in Sz. On the neural level, the hypothesis is that these deficits will represent impaired interactions between TPJ-pSTS and other brain regions including visual perceptual regions (e.g. V1, MT), attention networks (VAN, DAN), and theory of mind networks (e.g. MFG, vmPFC). A novel feature of the project is the use of naturalistic imaging (collaborators: Drs. Hasson and Leopold) in which activation of and functional connectivity between brain regions is monitored continuously while subjects view ecologically valid stimuli (e.g. social vignettes). Human Connectome Project acquisition and processing approaches are implemented and will be used for all studies. Overall, this program will prepare me for an independent career using advanced fMRI approaches, including task-based, resting state and naturalistic fMRI, for the study of the neural basis of social communication impairments across neuropsychiatric disorders. Relevance: Impaired social communication in schizophrenia is associated with long-term disability. The present study investigates the neural bases of these deficits, and prepares the candidate for a career in studying social communication deficits in psychiatric disorders.