March 14, 2007

In Schizophrenia, Brain's Default Mode Seems to be Out of Sync

Read more... Schizophrenia Biology

The "default mode," or baseline condition when the brain is idling, is not properly coordinated in patients with schizophrenia and this aberrant activity may be caused by poor connectivity between brain networks, a Yale School of Medicine researcher reports.

Co-author Godfrey Pearlson, M.D., professor of psychiatry, said he and his colleagues found that regions of the brain known previously to be individually abnormal in patients with schizophrenia, also function abnormally in concert in the default mode network.

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Although in normal comparison subjects, the network, as measured by its blood flow with fMRI, resonates slowly and regularly, in schizophrenia the activity is increased and more irregular and also correlates with positive symptoms (click here to learn more about symptoms of schizophrenia).

“In addition, the extent of the default mode abnormalities correlated with the severity of auditory hallucinations, delusional thoughts, and attention deficits that are hallmarks of schizophrenia,” Pearlson said.

Although the exact role of the default network is unknown, it is thought to involve response to stimuli as well as self-referential and reflective activity that includes memory retrieval, inner speech, mental images, emotions, and planning of future events.

Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder that alters patients’ perception, thought processes, and behavior as evidenced by hallucinations, delusions, disorganized speech or behavior, social withdrawal, and varied cognitive deficits. Episodic memory and attention are significantly impaired in schizophrenia.

A central feature of schizophrenia is disturbed integration of activity across multiple brain regions, or dysfunctional connectivity between frontal temporal brain regions. Symptoms of schizophrenia have been attributed to a failure of functional integration or aberrant connectivity among regions or systems of the brain.

The study included 21 patients with schizophrenia and 22 healthy subjects. The group performed a straightforward task while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging in which they were asked to detect an infrequent target sound within a series of standard and novel sounds. In the healthy subjects, the default mode network resonated slowly and regularly as observed by blood flow. In the patients with schizophrenia, the activity in the brain increased and was significantly more irregular, although they performed equally well on the task.

Abigail Garrity of Trinity College was the lead author and Vince Calhoun of the Institute of Living/Hartford Hospital was the senior author. Co-authors included Dan Lloyd of Trinity College and Kristen McKiernan and Kent Kiehl of the Institute of Living/Hartford Hospital.

The study was supported by, among other funders, the National Institutes of Health in a MERIT grant to Pearlson.

The research was published in:American Journal of Psychiatry 164: 450-457 (March 2007)

Source: Yale University Medical School


Comments

I would very much like to see more information on this type of understanding of the disease. I've thought for sometime that schizophrenia is due to do the different systems being out of sync, not necessarily broke themselves. I think when we can find a way to stabilize/synchronize how they communicate, then we will be much closer to finding a cure for this.

Posted by: Cory Schulz at March 14, 2007 07:37 PM

I agree with the upper comment, inability to suppress strange thoughts, images coming from nowhere, voices, all seems like inability to filter out crative part of the brain when it is not necessary. Interconnection between different control points in the brain. Something like that. Good luck to scientists.

Posted by: Marija at March 18, 2007 12:56 AM

The only drug that I have tried that helps improve communication and synchronize parts of the brain is Piracetam. It is a cognitive enhancing drug that has been shown to increase communication across the hemispheres through the corpus callosum. This increase in the corpus callosum is also seen in people who meditate, musicians who play instruments such as the piano, people who juggle regularly, and sometimes gymnasts/dancers.

It is also possible that bipolar medications such as Lamictal might help schizophrenic patients thoughts from becoming overly disorganized and uncontrollable. By stabilizing sodium channels and modulating presynaptic glutamate release, they might be able to improve the condition of some patients and stabilize the brain in a less centralized way.

Posted by: Cory Schulz at March 18, 2007 02:04 PM

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