Neuroanatomical mechanism on the effect of distraction in working memory maintenance in patients with schizophrenia

This study utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to discriminate brain activation patterns associated with the effect of distraction during working memory (WM) maintenance for human faces in healthy controls and patients with schizophrenia. Event-related fMRI data were obtained while the subjects performed WMmaintenance in a delayed-response WMtask with task-irrelevant distracters. Compared with healthy controls, patients showed significantly decreased activities in the superior frontal gyrus, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, inferior parietal gyrus, and fusiform gyrus during the delayed-response WM task with human face distracters. The bloodoxygen- level-dependent signal changes in the DLPFC were negatively correlated with both of the scores of the Positive Subscale and General Psychopathology Subscale under the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale during the WM maintenance for the human faces in the patients. This study will be helpful in understanding the neural mechanisms in the general impairment of the inhibition control in schizophrenia.