The central hypothesis of the Center focuses on the role that functional abnormalities in the intrinsic circuitry of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and in its interconnections with other brain regions, including the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), play in the regulation of cognition in schizophrenia. These functional disturbances are hypothesized to arise during late brain (adolescent) development as a result of alterations in the molecular signals and structural elements that determine synaptic efficacy in the affected circuits. Studies conducted by this Project suggest that a specific form of cognitive dysfunction, a deficit in context processing, is a trait feature of schizophrenia that is present at the first episode, is stable across the course of the illness and is present in the unaffected relatives of schizophrenia patients. Basic functional MRI and computational modeling studies have suggested that context processing depends upon both the DLPFC (for representing and maintaining context), and the ACC (for monitoring for conflicts and modulating DLPFC accordingly). Using a multimodal functional neuroimaging approach that integrates high-density ERP and functional MRI, and a novel task that dissociates DLPFC and ACC functions in time, we propose 1) to investigate the relative contribution of DLPFC and ACC based cognitive functions to impaired context processing in never medicated first episode (FE) schizophrenia patients, and to determine the specificity of these abnormalities to schizophrenia, versus psychosis in general; 2) to test the hypothesis that the same deficits in DLPFC and ACC function in patients will be observed in their unaffected first degree relatives, confirming a relationship between impairment in the function of this circuit and the context processing deficits that are associated with a genetic liability to schizophrenia; and 3) to examine the developmental course of DLPFC and ACC based contributions to context processing in adolescent offspring of parents with schizophrenia, compared to non-high risk adolescent control subjects. This will enable us to directly test the hypothesis that cognitive deficits that reflect a genetic liability for schizophrenia are manifested through a disturbance in late brain development. These studies have many conceptual links to other projects in the Center and depend heavily on support provide by the Clinical Services Core-C and the Statistics and Data Management Core-D.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Specialized Center (P50)
Project #
2P50MH045156-14
Application #
6813955
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZMH1-BRB-P (04))
Project Start
2003-09-18
Project End
2008-06-30
Budget Start
2003-09-18
Budget End
2004-06-30
Support Year
14
Fiscal Year
2003
Total Cost
$309,665
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Pittsburgh
Department
Type
DUNS #
004514360
City
Pittsburgh
State
PA
Country
United States
Zip Code
15213
Cai, HuaLin; Zhou, Xiang; Dougherty, George G et al. (2018) Pregnenolone-progesterone-allopregnanolone pathway as a potential therapeutic target in first-episode antipsychotic-naïve patients with schizophrenia. Psychoneuroendocrinology 90:43-51
Stevenson, J M; Reilly, J L; Harris, M S H et al. (2016) Antipsychotic pharmacogenomics in first episode psychosis: a role for glutamate genes. Transl Psychiatry 6:e739
Lizano, Paulo L; Keshavan, Matcheri S; Tandon, Neeraj et al. (2016) Angiogenic and immune signatures in plasma of young relatives at familial high-risk for psychosis and first-episode patients: A preliminary study. Schizophr Res 170:115-22
Bishop, Jeffrey R; Reilly, James L; Harris, Margret S H et al. (2015) Pharmacogenetic associations of the type-3 metabotropic glutamate receptor (GRM3) gene with working memory and clinical symptom response to antipsychotics in first-episode schizophrenia. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 232:145-54
Horton, Leslie E; Tarbox, Sarah I; Olino, Thomas M et al. (2015) Trajectories of premorbid childhood and adolescent functioning in schizophrenia-spectrum psychoses: A first-episode study. Psychiatry Res 227:339-46
Hall, Nathan; Colby, Carol (2014) S-cone visual stimuli activate superior colliculus neurons in old world monkeys: implications for understanding blindsight. J Cogn Neurosci 26:1234-56
Subramanian, Janani; Colby, Carol L (2014) Shape selectivity and remapping in dorsal stream visual area LIP. J Neurophysiol 111:613-27
Berdyyeva, Tamara K; Olson, Carl R (2014) Intracortical microstimulation of supplementary eye field impairs ability of monkeys to make serially ordered saccades. J Neurophysiol 111:1529-40
Lencer, Rebekka; Bishop, Jeffrey R; Harris, Margret S H et al. (2014) Association of variants in DRD2 and GRM3 with motor and cognitive function in first-episode psychosis. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci 264:345-55
McCracken, Clinton B; Grace, Anthony A (2013) Persistent cocaine-induced reversal learning deficits are associated with altered limbic cortico-striatal local field potential synchronization. J Neurosci 33:17469-82

Showing the most recent 10 out of 382 publications