Blunted brain activation in patients with schizophrenia in response to emotional cognitive inhibition: a functional near-infrared spectroscopy study

Introduction: Patients with schizophrenia (SZ) have deficits of facial emotion processing and cognitive inhibition, but the brain pathophysiology underlying these deficits and their interaction are not clearly understood. We tested brain activity during an emotional face go/no-go task that requires rapid executive control affected by emotional stimuli in patients with SZ using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).

Methods: Twenty-five patients with SZ and 28 healthy control subjects were studied. We evaluated behavioral performance and used fNIRS to measure oxygenated hemoglobin concentration changes in fronto-temporal areas during the emotional go/no-go task with emotional and non-emotional blocks.

Results: Patients with SZ made more errors and had longer reaction times in both test blocks compared with healthy subjects. Significantly greater activation in the inferior, superior, middle, and orbital frontal regions were observed in healthy subjects during the emotional go/no-go block compared to the non-emotional go/no-go block, but this difference was not observed in patients with SZ. Relative to healthy subjects, patients with SZ showed less activation in the superior and orbital frontal and middle temporal regions during the emotional go/no-go block.

Discussion: Our results suggest that fronto-temporal dysfunction in patients with SZ is due to an interaction between abnormal processing of emotional facial expressions with negative valence and cognitive inhibition, especially during the rapid selection of rule-based associations that override automatic emotional response tendencies. They indicate that fronto-temporal dysfunction is involved in the pathophysiology of emotional-cognitive deficits in patients with SZ.