Behavioral Neuroscience | Cognitive Neuroscience | Neurobiology of Disease & Regeneration | Schizophrenia & Other Psychoses | Neuroimaging
Midbrain modulation of hippocampus dependent learning in Singaporeans at ultra high risk for the development of schizophrenia
Elizabeth B Johnson, Jessica Wilson, Joann Poh, Siti Yaakub, Kavitha Dorairaj, Attilio Rapisarda, Michael Chee, Siow Ann Chong, Mythily Subramaniam, Richard Keefe, Michael Kraus, Jimmy Lee Chee Keong, Yioe Ling Bong, R Alison Adcock*
*Corresponding author: R Alison Adcock
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
F1000Posters 2012, 3: 736 (poster) [English]
Poster [1.94 MB]
Presented at
67th Society of Biological Psychiatry Annual Meeting 2012,
3 - 5 May 2012, 805
Schizophrenia is associated with hippocampal dysfunction, and disruption of the well-documented influence of dopamine on hippocampal function offers a potential mechanism for the pathological and functional hippocampal changes in schizophrenia. Thus neurocognitive functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of the hippocampus and dopaminergic midbrain offers candidate indices of vulnerability and of impending disease progression. In this study, participants at clinically defined Ultra High Risk (UHR) for developing schizophrenia and age-matched healthy volunteers underwent fMRI during a task in which feedback was used to learn a series of associations that had overlap between them. During a later probe phase, participant’s ability to generalize this knowledge to new associations was tested.
The findings from this study suggest that individuals at UHR for developing schizophrenia have limited engagement of the dopaminergic midbrain during associative learning. In addition, this decreased dopaminergic midbrain activation is associated with both worse relational memory and increasing symptom severity.
Future analyses will characterize those UHR individuals who develop schizophrenia relative to those who do not convert.
No relevant competing interests disclosed.
National Research Foundation Singapore under the National Medical Research Council Translational and Clinical Research Flagship Programme , NMRC/TCR/003/2008
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