American Journal of Psychiatry · 2000 · 258 citations · 7 references
MedicineNeurosciencePsychiatryCognitive NeuroscienceNeuropsychiatrySocial CognitionAttribution ProcessesBrain ImagingFunctional NeuroimagingPsychotic DisordersSchizophrenia Spectrum DisordersTheory Of MindBlood Oxygenation Level-dependent ContrastBlood Oxygenation Level-dependent ImagingBrain RegionsFunctional Magnetic Resonance ImagingFunctional MriPrefrontal Cortex DysfunctionPrefrontal Cortex FunctionPrefrontal Cortex Involvement
OBJECTIVE: Evidence suggests that patients with schizophrenia have a deficit in "theory of mind," i.e., interpretation of the mental state of others. The authors used functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to investigate the hypothesis that patients with schizophrenia have a dysfunction in brain regions responsible for mental state attribution. METHOD: Mean brain activation in five male patients with schizophrenia was compared to that in seven comparison subjects during performance of a task involving attribution of mental state. RESULTS: During performance of the mental state attribution task, the patients made more errors and showed less blood-oxygen-level-dependent signal in the left inferior frontal gyrus. CONCLUSIONS: To the authors' knowledge, this is the first functional MRI study to show a deficit in the left prefrontal cortex in schizophrenia during a socioemotional task.
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