Brain Correlates of Self-Evaluation Deficits in Schizophrenia: A Combined Functional and Structural MRI Study

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 10; no. 9; p. e0138737
• Main Authors: Tan, Shuping, Zhao, Yanli, Fan, Fengmei, Zou, Yizhuang, Jin, Zhen, Zen, Yawei, Zhu, Xiaolin, Yang, Fude, Tan, Yunlong, Zhou, Dongfeng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 25.09.2015; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Activation; Adaptive structures; Adult; Antipsychotics; Brain; Brain Mapping; Brain research; Cortex (cingulate); Cortex (temporal); Drug abuse; Evaluation; Female; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Gray Matter - pathology; Gyrus Cinguli - physiopathology; Head injuries; Humans; Magnetic resonance; Magnetic resonance imaging; Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods; Male; Mental disorders; Mental health; Middle Aged; Morphometry; Neural networks; Neuroimaging; Neurosciences; NMR; Nuclear magnetic resonance; Oxygen; Oxygen - blood; Patients; Personality; Prefrontal cortex; Prefrontal Cortex - physiopathology; Psychiatry; Psychosis; Reaction Time; Schizophrenia; Schizophrenia - blood; Schizophrenia - physiopathology; Schizophrenic Psychology; Self awareness; Self evaluation; Self-Assessment; Structure-function relationships; Studies; Substantia grisea; Substrates; Temporal lobe; Beijing China; China
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0138737

Self-evaluation plays an important role in adaptive functioning and is a process that is typically impaired in patients with schizophrenia. Underlying neural mechanisms for this dysfunction may be associated with manifested psychosis. However, the brain substrates underlying this deficit are not well known. The present study used brain blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and gray matter voxel-based morphometry to explore the functional and structural brain correlates of self-evaluation deficits in schizophrenia. Eighteen patients with schizophrenia and 17 healthy controls were recruited and asked to judge whether a set of personality-trait adjectives were appropriate for describing themselves, a familiar other, or whether the adjectives were of positive or negative valence. Patients had slower response times for negative trait attributions than controls did; responses to positive trait attributions were faster than those for negative traits among the patient group, while no differences were observed in the control group. Control subjects showed greater activation within the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dMPFC) and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) than the patient group during the self-evaluation > semantic positivity-evaluation contrast. Patients showed greater activation mainly within the posterior cingulate gyrus (PCC) as compared to controls for the other-evaluation > semantic positivity-evaluation contrast. Furthermore, gray matter volume was reduced in the MPFC, temporal lobe, cuneus, and the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) among the patient group when compared to controls. The present study adds to previous findings regarding self- and other-referential processing in schizophrenia, providing support for neurobiological models of self-reflection impairment.