Brain function in psychiatric disorders. I. Regional cerebral blood flow in medicated schizophrenics.

We measured regional cerebral blood flow during resting baseline and the performance of verbal and spatial tasks in 15 medicated schizophrenics and 25 matched controls. Patients did not differ from controls in resting flows but showed different blood-flow changes during task performance. Controls replicated earlier findings in normal subjects: flow increased during task performance, and the hemispheric increase was greater in the left for the verbal and in the right for the spatial task. In contrast, patients showed no flow asymmetry for the verbal task and greater left hemispheric increase for the spatial task. The latter finding is consistent with the hypothesis that schizophrenia is associated with left hemispheric overactivation for spatial tasks. In addition, schizophrenic women had unusual flow changes in that their highest flow increase was for the verbal task.