Abnormal Brain Activation During Theory of Mind Tasks in Schizophrenia: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Social cognition abilities are severely impaired in schizophrenia (SZ). The current meta-analysis used foci of 21 individual studies on functional abnormalities in the schizophrenic brain in order to identify regions that reveal convergent under- or over-activation during theory of mind (TOM) tasks. Studies were included in the analyses when contrasting tasks that require the processing of mental states with tasks which did not. Only studies that investigated patients with an ICD or DSM diagnosis were included. Quantitative voxel-based meta-analyses were done using Seed-based d Mapping software. Common TOM regions like medial-prefrontal cortex and temporo-parietal junction revealed abnormal activation in schizophrenic patients: Under-activation was identified in the medial prefrontal cortex, left orbito-frontal cortex, and in a small section of the left posterior temporo-parietal junction. Remarkably, robust over-activation was identified in a more dorsal, bilateral section of the temporo-parietal junction. Further abnormal activation was identified in medial occipito-parietal cortex, right premotor areas, left cingulate gyrus, and lingual gyrus. The findings of this study suggest that SZ patients simultaneously show over- and under-activation in TOM-related regions. Especially interesting, temporo-parietal junction reveals diverging activation patterns with an under-activating left posterior and an over-activating bilateral dorsal section. In conclusion, SZ patients show less specialized brain activation in regions linked to TOM and increased activation in attention-related networks suggesting compensatory effects.

Classification of social anhedonia using temporal and spatial network features from a social cognition fMRI task

“…Additional analysis of which part of the covariance were important for classification, revealed that the only feature surviving correction for multiple comparisons was the variance within the left TPJ. This region has been associated with social cognition and ToM in several previous studies (Bodnar et al, 2014;Dodell-Feder, Tully, Lincoln, & Hooker, 2014;Kronbichler, Tschernegg, Martin, Schurz, & Kronbichler, 2017) and was also a prominent region in the decomposition methods to presented below. For more details on this analysis wee the "interpretation of covariance features for HSA classification" section in Data S1.…”

Nonsocial and social cognition in schizophrenia: current evidence and future directions

“…Similarly, aberrant neural activation has been observed during mentalizing. Schizophrenia patients showed hypoactivation in several areas related to mentalizing, including medial prefrontal cortex, posterior temporoparietal junction and ventromedial prefrontal cortex, as well as hyperactivation in the dorsal section of temporoparietal junction.…”

Mediating role of cognition and social cognition on creativity among patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls: Revisiting the Shared Vulnerability Model

“…29,30 The second main hypothesis was that, according to the Shared Vulnerability Model, 10 the initial differences between HC and patients with schizophrenia in creative performance would be, at least partially, due to the impairment in EF observed in schizophrenia. Given the previous evidence of the relation between ToM and creativity among healthy people, [33][34][35] along with the underlying shared brain structures 36,37,39 and the impairment shown in ToM in schizophrenia, 30,31 we decided to analyze whether ToM played a mediatory role in the relation between schizophrenia and creativity. This hypothesis was also confirmed.…”