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Diminished cerebral metabolic response to motor stimulation in schizophrenics: a PET study

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Abstract

Positron emission tomography (PET) and the deoxyglucose method were used to measure cerebral metabolism in 14 normals and 13 schizophrenics at rest and during performance of simple and complex finger-movement sequences. The normals, but not the schizophrenics, showed significant metabolic activation in mesial frontal and contralateral sensorimotor and premotor regions during the complex movement. The relative metabolism of schizophrenics was significantly lower than normal in frontal regions and higher than normal in thalamus and basal ganglia underall scanning conditions. The results suggest that schizophrenics may have a brain dysfunction which limits their capacity to produce a focal metabolic response to stimulation in several functionally distinct brain regions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Psychiatric University Hospital, Nussbaumstr. 7, 80336, Munich, Germany

    Wilfried Guenther

  2. Department of Psychiatry, New York University Medical Center, 550 First Avenue, 10017, New York, NY, USA

    Jonathan D. Brodie, Elsa J. Bartlett, Kenneth Alper, Adam Wolkin & Robert Cancro

  3. Department of Chemistry, Brookhaven National Laboratory, 11973, Upton, NY, USA

    Stephen L. Dewey, Nora D. Volkow & Alfred P. Wolf

  4. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, New York State University at Stony Brook School of Medicine, 11694, Stony Brook, NY, USA

    Fritz A. Henn

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  1. Wilfried Guenther
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  2. Jonathan D. Brodie
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  3. Elsa J. Bartlett
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  4. Stephen L. Dewey
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  5. Fritz A. Henn
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  6. Nora D. Volkow
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  10. Alfred P. Wolf
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Guenther, W., Brodie, J.D., Bartlett, E.J. et al. Diminished cerebral metabolic response to motor stimulation in schizophrenics: a PET study. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Nuerosci 244, 115–125 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02191884

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02191884

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