Medial frontal gyrus alterations in schizophrenia: Relationship with duration of illness and executive dysfunction

The neural basis of a deficit in abstract thinking in patients with schizophrenia

“…Although many studies have addressed the neural correlates of abstract thinking, most have used tasks with limitations in mimicking real-life situations (Sanfilipo et al, 2002;Frascarelli et al, 2015). Thus, it is difficult to directly interpret and apply the results to the real world.…”

“…For example, studies using tasks that test abstract thinking, such as rule-based categorization (Frascarelli et al, 2015) or finding similarities (Sanfilipo et al, 2002), have revealed that prefrontal dysfunctions may be responsible for impaired abstract thinking. These findings are not unexpected since the PFC is crucial for many cognitive functions such as working memory (Kaller et al, 2014;Subramaniam et al, 2014), theory of mind (ToM), (Dodell-Feder et al, 2013) anddecision-making (Krug et al, 2014).…”

“…It is unclear, however, whether these prefrontal dysfunctions are specific to a deficit in abstract thinking, because behavioral tasks used in previous studies test multiple cognitions besides abstract thinking. Moreover, tasks involving card sorting or similarity (Sanfilipo et al, 2002;Frascarelli et al, 2015) have limitations in evaluating abstract thinking in real-life situations. Accordingly, further investigation using a task that is more specific to abstract thinking and mimics real life situations is essential to elucidate the neural basis of impaired abstract thinking.…”

Frontal lobe alterations in schizophrenia: a review

“…The longer the duration of illness, the greater the reduction of gray matter volume in the left medial frontal gyrus. 50 Lower mean fractional anisotropy in the left frontal lobe has also been observed in schizophrenic patients. 51 Kauppi 55 In addition to the Table 1 -Physiological changes in the frontal lobe in schizophrenia, including most of the functional changes in the frontal lobe of schizophrenic patients -Increased axial and radial diffusivity measurements in the prefrontal cortex and temporal cortex.…”

Gray Matter Volume and Functional Connectivity in Hypochondriasis: A Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Support Vector Machine Analysis

“…The medial frontal gyrus (MedFG) is part of the medial prefrontal cortex, which is considered to manage the perceptual memory, the extinction of learned fear, and executive function (Kim et al, 2009;Schwiedrzik et al, 2018). Volumetric changes in the MedFG have been reported in adjustment disorder, schizophrenia, and major depression disorder research (Inoue et al, 2012;Frascarelli et al, 2015;Myung et al, 2016;Belleau et al, 2019). The medial frontal cortex is also part of the default mode network (DMN), and mounting evidence suggested that the brain regions in the DMN have an important role in depression and anxiety disorders (Coutinho et al, 2016;Belleau et al, 2019).…”