[Functional magnetic resonance tomography in patients with schizophrenia: neural correlates of symptoms, cognition and emotion].

In patients with schizophrenia, numerous mental processes are impaired, which can be related to brain systems using functional imaging methods (e.g. functional magnetic resonance imaging; fMRI). In this review the methodological and conceptual background of fMRI will first be discussed. Secondly, the cerebral networks involved in important symptoms of schizophrenia such as hallucinations, delusions and formal thought disorders will be outlined. Furthermore, the pathways of the central nervous system involved in cognitive dysfunction in patients with schizophrenia will be described also in the dependence on genotype and medicinal status. Functional imaging methods provide psychiatry and psychotherapy with the unique opportunity to correlate mental processes and dysfunctions with neural networks.