Project Summary

Caroline F. Zink, Ph.D. (Young Investigator 2007) of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH/NIH), will use fMRI to characterize striatal activity in unmedicated schizophrenic patients to differentiate brain responses to salient and non-salient events. The dopamine-striatal system has been implicated in the processing of salient events in our environment, and it as been suggested that positive symptoms may be associated with an aberrant assignment of saliency to non-salient events, whereas negative symptoms may be associated with a blunting of responses to normally salient events. Dr. Zink hypothesizes that patients experiencing severe positive symptoms will show high striatal responses to non-salient environmental cues due to an incorrect assignment of saliency, whereas patients with severe negative symptoms will have dampened activation in the striatum. She hopes that characterizing the neural mechanisms and genetic influences contributing to the altered processing of saliency in schizophrenia will result in a better understanding of the cognitive deficits associated with schizophrenia, leading to more effective treatments for core symptoms of the disorder.

Program Area: SCHIZOPHRENIA/PSYCHOTIC DISORDERS\Schizophrenia

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