This research intends to use Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and 11-C-2-deoxyglucose (11-CDG) to measure and map the cerebral metabolic representation of motor programming (planning and execution of complex finger movements) in schizophrenic and normal subjects. It is part of a long term effort to measure the biological concommitants of this syndrome so as to identify those metabolic processes that may precede or accompany the onset of symptoms, change as the illness progresses, or be modified by treatment. Achievement of these long-term objectives will aid in the diagnosis, classification and treatment of this disabling disorder which afflicts about two million people in this country. We plan to measure regional glucose metabolism in groups of schizophrenic patients who are medication-free, medicated, and never medicated while at rest (for reference), while performing a complex, finger sequencing movement task, and while performing a simple, repetitive finger movement task as a control. These studies will be carried out in each subject on the same day. We will compare these results with those obtained with normal control subjects studied in a similar fashion. We expect that the task dysfunction exhibited by the schizophrenics will yield a metabolic pattern that will distinguish patients from normals and the underlying derangement from the effects of drugs used to treat the illness.
| Guenther, W; Brodie, J D; Bartlett, E J et al. (1994) Diminished cerebral metabolic response to motor stimulation in schizophrenics: a PET study. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci 244:115-25 |
