Volume 15 Issue 8, August 2010

Failure of activation and failure of de-activation during cognitive task performance in schizophrenia. Thirty-two patients with schizophrenia and 32 healthy control subjects were imaged using fMRI while they performed the n-back working memory task. Compared to the controls the patients showed reduced activation in a network of brain regions including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (shown in blue).There was also a large area in the medial frontal cortex where they showed failure of de-activation (shown in orange). The right side of the image represents the left side of the brain. For more information on this topic, please refer to the article by Pomarol-Clotet et al. on pages 823–830.