Anne Pankow1, Teresa Katthagen2, Sarah Diner2, Lorenz Deserno, Rebecca Boehme2, Nobert Kathmann3, Tobias Gleich2, Michael Gaebler4, Henrik Walter2, Andreas Heinz2, Florian Schlagenhauf5. 1. Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité Campus Mitte, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany; anne.pankow@charite.de. 2. Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité Campus Mitte, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany; 3. Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany. 4. Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité Campus Mitte, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany; Faculty of Medicine, Universität Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany. 5. Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité Campus Mitte, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Max Planck Fellow Group 'Cognitive and Affective Control of Behavioral Adaption', Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany;
Abstract
BACKGROUND: A dysfunctional differentiation between self-relevant and irrelevant information may affect the perception of environmental stimuli as abnormally salient. The aberrant salience hypothesis assumes that positive symptoms arise from an attribution of salience to irrelevant stimuli accompanied by the feeling of self-relevance. Self-referential processing relies on the activation of cortical midline structures which was demonstrated to be impaired in psychosis. We investigated the neural correlates of self-referential processing, aberrant salience attribution, and the relationship between these 2 measures across the psychosis continuum. METHODS: Twenty-nine schizophrenia patients, 24 healthy individuals with subclinical delusional ideation, and 50 healthy individuals participated in this study. Aberrant salience was assessed behaviorally in terms of reaction times to task irrelevant cues. Participants performed a self-reference task during fMRI in which they had to apply neutral trait words to them or to a public figure. The correlation between self-referential processing and aberrant salience attribution was tested. RESULTS: Schizophrenia patients displayed increased aberrant salience attribution compared with healthy controls and individuals with subclinical delusional ideation, while the latter exhibited intermediate aberrant salience scores. In the self-reference task, schizophrenia patients showed reduced activation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), but individuals with subclinical delusional ideation did not differ from healthy controls. In schizophrenia patients, vmPFC activation correlated negatively with implicit aberrant salience attribution. CONCLUSIONS: Higher aberrant salience attribution in schizophrenia patients is related to reduced vmPFC activation during self-referential judgments suggesting that aberrant relevance coding is reflected in decreased neural self-referential processing as well as in aberrant salience attribution.
BACKGROUND: A dysfunctional differentiation between self-relevant and irrelevant information may affect the perception of environmental stimuli as abnormally salient. The aberrant salience hypothesis assumes that positive symptoms arise from an attribution of salience to irrelevant stimuli accompanied by the feeling of self-relevance. Self-referential processing relies on the activation of cortical midline structures which was demonstrated to be impaired in psychosis. We investigated the neural correlates of self-referential processing, aberrant salience attribution, and the relationship between these 2 measures across the psychosis continuum. METHODS: Twenty-nine schizophreniapatients, 24 healthy individuals with subclinical delusional ideation, and 50 healthy individuals participated in this study. Aberrant salience was assessed behaviorally in terms of reaction times to task irrelevant cues. Participants performed a self-reference task during fMRI in which they had to apply neutral trait words to them or to a public figure. The correlation between self-referential processing and aberrant salience attribution was tested. RESULTS:Schizophreniapatients displayed increased aberrant salience attribution compared with healthy controls and individuals with subclinical delusional ideation, while the latter exhibited intermediate aberrant salience scores. In the self-reference task, schizophreniapatients showed reduced activation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), but individuals with subclinical delusional ideation did not differ from healthy controls. In schizophreniapatients, vmPFC activation correlated negatively with implicit aberrant salience attribution. CONCLUSIONS: Higher aberrant salience attribution in schizophreniapatients is related to reduced vmPFC activation during self-referential judgments suggesting that aberrant relevance coding is reflected in decreased neural self-referential processing as well as in aberrant salience attribution.
Authors: Daphne J Holt; Brittany S Cassidy; Jessica R Andrews-Hanna; Su Mei Lee; Garth Coombs; Donald C Goff; John D Gabrieli; Joseph M Moran Journal: Biol Psychiatry Date: 2010-12-08 Impact factor: 13.382
Authors: Mujeeb U Shad; Matcheri S Keshavan; Joel L Steinberg; Perry Mihalakos; Binu P Thomas; Michael A Motes; Jair C Soares; Carol A Tamminga Journal: Schizophr Res Date: 2012-04-04 Impact factor: 4.939
Authors: Liana Romaniuk; Garry D Honey; Julia R L King; Heather C Whalley; Andrew M McIntosh; Liat Levita; Mark Hughes; Eve C Johnstone; Mark Day; Stephen M Lawrie; Jeremy Hall Journal: Arch Gen Psychiatry Date: 2010-12
Authors: A Schmidt; M Antoniades; P Allen; A Egerton; C A Chaddock; S Borgwardt; P Fusar-Poli; J P Roiser; O Howes; P McGuire Journal: Psychol Med Date: 2016-10-04 Impact factor: 7.723