Kayako Matsuo1, S.H. Annabel Chen2, Chih-Min Liu3, Chen-Chung Liu3, Hai-Go Hwu3, Wen-Yih I. Tseng1
1National Taiwan University College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan; 2Division of Psychology, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; 3Department of Psychiatry, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan
We applied verbal working memory (VWM) fMRI to investigate schizophrenia specifically focusing on the cerebellum. We designed high and low load conditions to examine two contrasts: high > low load contrast for the VWM activation, and low > high load contrast for the default mode network (DMN) “deactivation”. The VWM contrast activation overlapped with the Cerebellum VI, Crus I and Vermis. In contrast, the DMN contrast yielded activation in the Crus II of the cerebellum. An extensive “deactivation” observed in the control group but not in the schizophrenia group might be an indicator of the disease.