Altered amygdala activation in schizophrenia patients during emotion processing

Abstract

Dysfunctional emotion processing in patients suffering from schizophrenia is a prominent clinical feature of great importance for social functioning and subjective well-being. The neurobiological underpinnings are still poorly understood. Here we investigated a large sample of schizophrenia patients and matched healthy controls with an event-related fMRI task during emotion processing using emotional pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). Schizophrenia patients revealed stronger right amygdala activation during negative and attenuated response during positive affective picture processing compared to healthy controls. Further analysis indicated that medication status influences activation of the ventral anterior cingulate cortex during negative affective stimuli processing. These results might represent a correlate of altered emotional experience in schizophrenia patients who are known to report less positive and more negative affective states in daily life situations.

Keywords: Amygdala; Emotion; Functional imaging; IAPS; Schizophrenia.