Ta. Russell et al., Exploring the social drain in schizophrenia: Left prefrontal underactivation during mental state attribution, AM J PSYCHI, 157(12), 2000, pp. 2040-2042
Objective: Evidence suggests that patients with schizophrenia have a defici
t 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 brai
n 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 patie
nts 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 st
udy to show a deficit in the left prefrontal cortex in schizophrenia during
a socioemotional task.