Shifted neuronal balance during stimulus-response integration in schizophrenia – an fMRI study

Introduction: Schizophrenia is characterized by marked deficits in executive and psychomotor functions, as demonstrated for goal-directed actions in the anti-saccade task. Recent studies, however, suggest that this deficit represents only one manifestation of a general deficit in stimulus-response integration and volitional initiation of motor responses. Methods: We here used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate brain activation patterns during a manual stimulus-response compatibility task in eighteen schizophrenic patients and eighteen matched control participants. Results: We found that across…