MedWire News: Patients with schizophrenia show reduced connectivity between auditory and language processing areas of the brain compared with mentally healthy individuals, say Dutch researchers.
"Brain circuits involved in language processing have been suggested to be compromised in patients with schizophrenia," explain Edith Liemburg (University of Groningen) and team.
"This does not only include regions subserving language production and perception, but also auditory processing and attention," they add.
To investigate whether schizophrenia patients have reduced connectivity between auditory, language, and attention networks, the researchers enrolled 45 patients with the mental health disorder and 30 age-, gender-, and handedness-matched controls who had similar levels of education.
All of the participants underwent resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans of the brain, and component analysis was used to identify relevant networks.
Specifically, the researchers found that the language network contained Broca's area, and to a lesser degree Broca's right-sided homologue, as well as Wernicke's area and its right homologue.
The auditory network involved the bilateral superior temporal gyrus, encompassing the primary and secondary auditory cortex, and the lingual gyrus, anterior cingulate, and medial frontal gyrus.
The attention network consisted mainly of the anterior cingulate, but involved some areas of the cingulate cortex, and inferior parietal lobule.
Results from the fMRI scans revealed that, compared with controls, schizophrenia patients had significantly reduced connectivity between the auditory and language networks, and significantly increased connectivity between the attention and language networks.
There was no significant correlation between connectivity and symptom severity, as measured using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, the researchers note.
Liemburg and team conclude in the journal Schizophrenia Research: "Patients with schizophrenia showed reduced connectivity between the auditory and language networks. Such reduced connectivity could contribute to impairments in language expression and comprehension.
They add: "An abnormally increased connectivity between the attention and the language network could be related to habitual suppression of unintended speech, or to excessive attention to internally generated speech."
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