Magnetoencephalography Study of Right Parietal Lobe Dysfunction of the Evoked Mirror Neuron System in Antipsychotic-Free Schizophrenia

Abstract

IntroductionPatients with schizophrenia commonly exhibit deficits of non-verbal communication in social contexts, which may be related to cognitive dysfunction that impairs recognition of biological motion. Although perception of biological motion is known to be mediated by the mirror neuron system, there have been few empirical studies of this system in patients with schizophrenia.MethodsUsing magnetoencephalography, we examined whether antipsychotic-free schizophrenia patients displayed mirror neuron system dysfunction during observation of biological motion (jaw movement of another individual).ResultsCompared with normal controls, the patients with schizophrenia had fewer components of both the waveform and equivalent current dipole, suggesting aberrant brain activity resulting from dysfunction of the right inferior parietal cortex. They also lacked the changes of alpha band and gamma band oscillation seen in normal controls, and had weaker phase-locking factors and gamma-synchronization predominantly in right parietal cortex.ConclusionsOur findings demonstrate that untreated patients with schizophrenia exhibit aberrant mirror neuron system function based on the right inferior parietal cortex, which is characterized by dysfunction of gamma-synchronization in the right parietal lobe during observation of biological motion.

Binding Action and Emotion in First-Episode Schizophrenia

“…In conclusion, our study supports previous evidence of poorer mnES during action observation in schizophrenia [21,22,23,24]. Moreover, it goes further by showing that emotional cues might allow patients to recover mnES, at least in part.…”

“…Evidence of poorer mnES comes from transcranial magnetic stimulation studies [21,22] and from magneto-encephalography studies [23,24]. For example, deficient motor facilitation during action observation relative to the resting state was detected in antipsychotic-naive SCZ patients as compared with medicated SCZ patients and healthy comparison subjects [22].…”

“…For example, deficient motor facilitation during action observation relative to the resting state was detected in antipsychotic-naive SCZ patients as compared with medicated SCZ patients and healthy comparison subjects [22]. Accordingly, a magneto-encephalography study demonstrated that untreated SCZ patients exhibit fewer waveforms and equivalent current dipoles in the right parietal lobe than healthy subjects [24]. In contrast, electro-encephalography studies reported intact [25] or increased [26] μ-wave suppression (representing greater mnES) in SCZ patients when compared with healthy participants.…”

“…In this case, we should observe entirely different neural response patterns between patients and control participants during the observation of actions embedded both in neutral and emotional contexts. Previous studies have shown a poorer ability of SCZ patients in recognizing both actions [21,22,23,24] and emotions [27,28,29,30] as compared to HCs. Based on these data we favour the hypothesis that both mnES and responses to emotional cues are altered in first-episode SCZ patients.…”

Event related desynchronisation of mu-wave over right sensorimotor cortex at baseline may predict subsequent response to antipsychotics in Schizophrenia

“…In schizophrenia and related disorders, a dysfunctional mirror neuron system (MNS) in comparison to healthy controls has been observed by various authors (Mitra et al, 2014a;Kato et al, 2011;Rizzolatti et al, 1998). Recent work to explore the temporal evolution of MNS function has revealed that in patients with schizophrenia, this dysfunction did not change significantly despite adequate antipsychotic treatment, and consequent improvements in psychopathology (Mitra et al, 2014b).…”