Project Summary

Rebecca L.M. Fuller, Ph.D. (Young Investigator 2002) of Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, will investigate two different neural systems which are potential sites of impairment of working memory associated with schizophrenia-the first is associated with maintenance of the target stimulus and is marked by enhancement of the frontal cortex, while the second is associated with the repetition of distracters and targets and is defined by suppression of activity in the ventral temporal and parietal cortices.  One attends to the role of active maintenance and the other pertains to perceptual encoding processes in working memory.  Dr. Fuller will examine working memory in schizophrenia using a paradigm proven to dissociate between target maintenance and stimulus repetition and to determine if irregularities in brain activity as measured with event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) are associated with working memory deficits in schizophrenia.

Program Area: SCHIZOPHRENIA/PSYCHOTIC DISORDERS\Schizophrenia

Search Again