| Autor: |
Kamath RS; Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA., Weldon KB; Center for Magnetic Resonance Research, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA.; Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA., Moser HR; Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA., Montoya S; Graduate Program in Neuroscience, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA., Abdullahi KS; Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA., Burton PC; Office of the Associate Dean for Research, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA.; Center for Magnetic Resonance Research, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA., Sponheim SR; Veterans Affairs Health Care System, Minneapolis, MN, USA.; Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA., Olman CA; Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA.; Center for Magnetic Resonance Research, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA., Schallmo MP; Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA. |
| Abstrakt: |
Contour integration, the process of joining spatially separated elements into a single unified line, has consistently been found to be impaired in schizophrenia. Recent work suggests that this deficit could be associated with psychotic symptomatology, rather than a specific diagnosis such as schizophrenia. Examining a transdiagnostic sample of participants with psychotic psychopathology, we obtained quantitative indices of contour perception in a psychophysical behavioral task. We found impaired contour discrimination performance among people with psychotic psychopathology (PwPP, n = 62) compared to healthy controls (n = 34) and biological relatives of PwPP (n = 44). Participants with schizophrenia (n = 31) showed impaired task performance compared to participants with bipolar disorder (n = 18). We also measured responses during an analogous task using ultra-high field (7T) functional MRI and found higher responses in the lateral occipital cortex of PwPP compared to controls. Using task-based functional connectivity analyses, we observed abnormal connectivity between visual brain areas during contour perception among PwPP. These connectivity differences only emerged when participants had to distinguish the contour object from background distractors, suggesting that a failure to suppress noise elements relative to contour elements may underlie impaired contour processing in PwPP. Our results are consistent with impaired contour integration in psychotic psychopathology, and especially schizophrenia, that is related to cognitive dysfunction, and may be linked to impaired functional connectivity across visual regions. |
