Functional Brain Mapping in Schizophrenia

描述（由申请人提供）：感觉处理缺陷是精神分裂症的一个主要特征。在视觉系统中，这些缺陷通常使用心理物理和行为测量来研究。许多这些研究的结果都表明，与健康对照者相比，精神分裂症患者对视觉后向掩蔽（VBM）、运动感知受损和眼动追踪缺陷的易感性增加。当前应用的主要目的是应用大脑活动的新的血流动力学测量与渲染皮层表面的三维图像并行，系统地绘制精神分裂症的感觉处理区域。我们的目标是利用这些地图来可视化大脑皮层在受到多种视觉刺激时的精确位置。从功能上定义视觉处理区域是获得对精神分裂症视觉通路功能障碍的神经生理和解剖学基础的更全面理解的重要和必要的第一步。该研究的第二个目的是获得有关精神分裂症大细胞（背侧）视觉加工流功能障碍的初步信息。背流功能障碍在精神分裂症中有很好的记录，越来越多的证据表明这些缺陷是由于低水平的大细胞功能障碍。本应用程序的最后一项研究将使用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）评估精神分裂症的大细胞和旁细胞功能。理解视觉通路的完整性对于理解精神分裂症的高级视觉功能障碍至关重要。精神分裂症是一种严重影响公共卫生系统的毁灭性疾病。了解这种疾病背后的基本大脑机制是获得对这种疾病更全面了解的重要和必要的一步，并可能导致改进的治疗策略。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Sensory processing deficits constitute a central feature of schizophrenia. In the visual system, these deficits have typically been investigated using psychophysical and behavioral measures. The findings from many of these studies converge to show that schizophrenia patients, relative to healthy control subjects, have increased susceptibility to visual backward masking (VBM), impaired motion perception and eye tracking deficits. The primary aim of the current application is to apply novel hemodynamic measures of brain activity in parallel with three-dimensional images of the rendered cortical surface to systematically map sensory processing areas in schizophrenia. Our aim is to use these maps to visualize the precise location of cortical activity in response to many types of visual stimuli given to one subject. Functionally defining visual processing areas is an important and necessary first step towards gaining a more complete understanding of the neurophysiological and anatomical bases of visual pathway dysfunction in schizophrenia. A secondary aim of the proposed study is to acquire preliminary information regarding dysfunction within the magnocellular (dorsal) visual processing stream in schizophrenia. Dorsal stream dysfunction has been well documented in schizophrenia and increasing evidence suggests that these deficits are due to low-level magnocellular dysfunction. The final study in this application will evaluate magnocellular and parvocellular function in schizophrenia using functional MRI (fMRI). Understanding the integrity of the visual pathways is crucial to understanding high-level visual dysfunction in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a devastating disease that significantly impacts the public health system. Understanding the basic brain mechanisms that underlie this disorder is an important and necessary step towards gaining a more complete understanding of the disease and may lead to improved treatment strategies.