Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2013 Nov;150(2-3):555-62.
doi: 10.1016/j.schres.2013.08.016. Epub 2013 Sep 16.

Working memory and default mode network abnormalities in unaffected siblings of schizophrenia patients

Max de Leeuw  1 , René S Kahn, Bram B Zandbelt, Christian G Widschwendter, Matthijs Vink
Affiliations

Working memory and default mode network abnormalities in unaffected siblings of schizophrenia patients

Max de Leeuw et al. Schizophr Res. 2013 Nov.

Abstract

Background: Impaired working memory (WM) is a hallmark of schizophrenia. In addition to classical WM regions such as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the striatum, dysfunctions in the default-mode network (DMN) contribute to these WM deficits. Unaffected siblings of patients also show WM impairments. However, the nature of the functional deficits underlying these impairments is unclear, mainly because of impaired performance confounding neuroimaging results.

Methods: Here, we investigated WM and DMN activity in 23 unaffected siblings of schizophrenia patients and 24 healthy volunteers using fMRI and a Sternberg WM task. WM load was determined prior to scanning to ensure 90% accuracy for all subjects.

Results: Siblings showed hyperactivation during the encoding phase of WM in the right medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) which is the anterior part of the DMN. No differences were found during the maintenance phase. During the retrieval phase, siblings showed hyperactivation in WM regions: DLPFC, inferior parietal cortex and the striatum. Siblings who showed hyperactivity in the MPFC during encoding showed DLPFC and striatum hyperactivation during retrieval.

Conclusions: Our finding of hyperactivation in WM and DMN areas indicates that siblings fail to adequately inhibit DMN activity during demanding cognitive tasks and subsequently hyperactivate WM areas. This failure may reflect dopamine hyperactivity in the striatum which prevents adequate DMN suppression needed for effective WM. This study provides support for the notion that aberrant WM and DMN activation patterns may represent candidate endophenotypes for schizophrenia.

Keywords: DLPFC; Default Mode Network; Schizophrenia; Siblings; Working memory.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

LinkOut - more resources