FUNCTIONAL NEUROANATOMY AND PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF SEMANTIC MEMORY

During the last decade, the development of new functional neuroimaging methods have improved the ability to localize cognitive functions in the intact human brain. Through the combination of functional neuroima ging and electrophysiological methods with behavioral experimental met hods information on the sequence of brain activations during the perfo rmance of a cognitive task can be obtained.The results of neurophysiol ogical studies have contributed to a better understanding how cognitiv e systems are implemented in the intact brain and how cognitive defici ts can arise from structural or functional damage to the neurobiologic al substrate. This interdisciplinary research process should finally r esult in a functional-neuroanatomical model of human cognition which e xplains both normal and deficient function. In this paper, we present findings from studies in which semantic memory access was investigated in schizophrenic patients and relate them to empirical evidence of se mantic memory organization and function from neuropsychological, cogni tive and neuroimaging studies. The advantage of an integrated theoreti cal framework of semantic memory is discussed.