Failure to mobilize cognitive control for challenging tasks correlates with symptom severity in schizophrenia

Bengi Baran; F. Işık Karahanoğlu; Yigal Agam; Leonidas Mantonakis; Dara S Manoach

doi:10.1016/j.nicl.2016.10.020

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Failure to mobilize cognitive control for challenging tasks correlates with symptom severity in schizophrenia

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Failure to mobilize cognitive control for challenging tasks correlates with symptom severity in schizophrenia

Bengi Baran, F. Işık Karahanoğlu, Yigal Agam, Leonidas Mantonakis and Dara S Manoach

NeuroImage clinical, Vol.12(C), pp.887-893

2016

DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2016.10.020

PMCID: PMC5109850

PMID: 27872811

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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2016.10.020View

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Abstract

Deficits in the adaptive, flexible control of behavior contribute to the clinical manifestations of schizophrenia. We used functional MRI and an antisaccade paradigm to examine the neural correlates of cognitive control deficits and their relations to symptom severity. Thirty-three chronic medicated outpatients with schizophrenia and 31 healthy controls performed an antisaccade paradigm. We examined differences in recruitment of the cognitive control network and task performance for Hard (high control) versus Easy (low control) antisaccade trials within and between groups. We focused on the key regions involved in ‘top-down’ control of ocular motor structures – dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, dorsolateral and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. In patients, we examined whether difficulty implementing cognitive control correlated with symptom severity. Patients made more errors overall, and had shorter saccadic latencies than controls on correct Hard vs. Easy trials. Unlike controls, patients failed to increase activation in the cognitive control network for Hard vs. Easy trials. Reduced activation for Hard vs. Easy trials predicted higher error rates in both groups and increased symptom severity in schizophrenia. These findings suggest that patients with schizophrenia are impaired in mobilizing cognitive control when presented with challenges and that this contributes to deficits suppressing prepotent but contextually inappropriate responses, to behavior that is stimulus-bound and error-prone rather than flexibly guided by context, and to symptom expression. Therapies aimed at increasing cognitive control may improve both cognitive flexibility and reduce the impact of symptoms. • Patients with schizophrenia fail to mobilize the cognitive control network during a challenging cognitive task. • This deficit results in behavior that is stimulus-bound and error-prone rather than flexibly guided by context. • Therapies aimed at increasing cognitive control may improve both cognitive flexibility and reduce the impact of symptoms.

Antisaccade

Anterior cingulate cortex

Regular

Schizophrenia

Functional MRI

Prefrontal cortex

Cognitive control

Details

Title: Subtitle: Failure to mobilize cognitive control for challenging tasks correlates with symptom severity in schizophrenia
Creators: Bengi Baran - Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States
F. Işık Karahanoğlu - Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States
Yigal Agam - Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States
Leonidas Mantonakis - Psychiatry Department, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Medical School, Eginition Hospital, Athens, Greece
Dara S Manoach - Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: NeuroImage clinical, Vol.12(C), pp.887-893
DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2016.10.020
PMID: 27872811
PMCID: PMC5109850
NLM abbreviation: Neuroimage Clin
ISSN: 2213-1582
eISSN: 2213-1582
Publisher: Elsevier
Grant note: DOI: 10.13039/100000025, name: National Institute of Mental Health, award: R01 MH67720, K24 MH099421; DOI: 10.13039/100009670, name: National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression; name: Mental Illness and Neuroscience Discovery (MIND) Institute; DOI: 10.13039/100005294, name: MGH Fund for Medical Discovery Clinical Fellowship Award 44EA - MGH; DOI: 10.13039/100000050, name: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, award: 5T32HL007901-17; DOI: 10.13039/501100001711, name: Swiss National Science Foundation, award: P2ELP2_159891; name: Shared Instrumentation, award: 1S10RR023401, 1S10RR019307, 1S10RR023043
Language: English
Date published: 2016
Academic Unit: Psychiatry; Psychological and Brain Sciences; Iowa Neuroscience Institute
Record Identifier: 9984065474502771

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