Proactive community case management decreased malaria prevalence in rural Madagascar: results from a cluster randomized trial.

Background: Malaria remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, with progress in malaria control stalling in recent years. Proactive community case management (pro-CCM) has been shown to increase access to diagnosis and treatment and reduce malaria burden. However, lack of experimental evidence may hinder the wider adoption of this intervention.

Social cognition in schizophrenia: Validation of an ecological fMRI task.

Neuroimaging studies have revealed brain regions involved in social cognition, which reportedly show functional alterations in schizophrenia. However, the social neural network has not been investigated with regards to language perception and social interactions in daily life. Here we developed and validated an integrative fMRI task to explore the neural basis of social cognition with regards to language perception in schizophrenia.

Effects of low- and high-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation on long-latency auditory evoked potentials.

Long-latency auditory event potentials (LLAEPs) involving local and global auditory processes have been investigated to examine the impact of low-frequency (LF) and high-frequency (HF) repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) on the cortical excitability of the temporal cortex. We hypothesized that both stimulation frequencies have the same modulation effect, in accordance with clinical data showing a reduction in auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) after LF and HF temporal rTMS in patients with schizophrenia. With 30 right-handed healthy volunteer participants enrolled in a crossover trial, we analyzed LLAEPs before and after LF- and HF-rTMS of the left temporal cortex.

Network modeling of resting state connectivity points towards the bottom up theories of schizophrenia.

The dysconnectivity theory of schizophrenia proposes that schizophrenia symptoms arise from abnormalities in neuronal synchrony. Resting-state Functional Connectivity (FC) techniques allow us to highlight synchronization of large-scale networks, the Resting-state Networks (RNs). A large body of work suggests that disruption of RN synchronization could give rise to specific schizophrenia symptoms.

Impact of rTMS on functional connectivity within the language network in schizophrenia patients with auditory hallucinations.

This exploratory study investigated the functional connectivity (FC) in the language network in schizophrenia patients (SZ) with auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs), and the therapeutic efficacy of rTMS on it. Eleven SZ with AVHs and 10 healthy controls (HC) underwent two fMRI sessions using a speech listening paradigm. SZ received 20Hz rTMS following the first fMRI session.

Functional deficit of the medial prefrontal cortex during emotional sentence attribution in schizophrenia.

Background: Functional brain imaging research has already demonstrated that patients with schizophrenia had difficulties with emotion processing, namely in facial emotion perception and emotional prosody. However, the moderating effect of social context and the boundary of perceptual categories of emotion attribution remain unclear. This study investigated the neural bases of emotional sentence attribution in schizophrenia.

Functional and structural brain asymmetries in patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorders.

Objectives: This study aimed to compare the functional and gray matter asymmetries in patients with schizophrenia (SZ), patients with bipolar disorders (BD), and healthy controls (HCs) to test whether decreased leftward functional hemispheric lateralization and gray matter volume asymmetry could mark the boundary between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Methods: A total of 31 right-handed SZ and 20 right-handed BD underwent a session of functional MRI with a speech listening paradigm. Participants were matched with HCs for gender, age, and education.

Social cognition in schizophrenic patients: the effect of semantic content and emotional prosody in the comprehension of emotional discourse.

Background: The recognition of the emotion expressed during conversation relies on the integration of both semantic processing and decoding of emotional prosody. The integration of both types of elements is necessary for social interaction. No study has investigated how these processes are impaired in patients with schizophrenia during the comprehension of an emotional speech.

Functional and white matter abnormalities in the language network in patients with schizophrenia: a combined study with diffusion tensor imaging and functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Background: Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by functional abnormalities in the language network. Anatomical white matter (WM) abnormalities (volume and integrity) have also been reported for this pathology. Nevertheless, few studies have investigated anatomo-functional relationships in schizophrenia, and none has focused on the language comprehension network in relation to various diffusion parameters.

Functional hemispheric lateralization for language in patients with schizophrenia.

Background: It is widely reported that patients with schizophrenia exhibit decreased hemispheric lateralization. However, no study has evaluated relationships between the hemispheric anatomical and functional asymmetry in language areas. The present study aimed to determine whether decreased leftward hemispheric lateralization could be related to asymmetry of the grey matter volume in patients with schizophrenia.

Links among resting-state default-mode network, salience network, and symptomatology in schizophrenia.

Neuroimaging data support the idea that schizophrenia is a brain disorder with altered brain structure and function. New resting-state functional connectivity techniques allow us to highlight synchronization of large-scale networks, such as the default-mode network (DMN) and salience network (SN). A large body of work suggests that disruption of these networks could give rise to specific schizophrenia symptoms.

A shared neural substrate for mentalizing and the affective component of sentence comprehension.

Using event-related fMRI in a sample of 42 healthy participants, we compared the cerebral activity maps obtained when classifying spoken sentences based on the mental content of the main character (belief, deception or empathy) or on the emotional tonality of the sentence (happiness, anger or sadness). To control for the effects of different syntactic constructions (such as embedded clauses in belief sentences), we subtracted from each map the BOLD activations obtained during plausibility judgments on structurally matching sentences, devoid of emotions or ToM. The obtained theory of mind (ToM) and emotional speech comprehension networks overlapped in the bilateral temporo-parietal junction, posterior cingulate cortex, right anterior temporal lobe, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and in the left inferior frontal sulcus.

Impact of Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) on Brain Functional Marker of Auditory Hallucinations in Schizophrenia Patients.

Unlabelled: Several cross-sectional functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) studies reported a negative correlation between auditory verbal hallucination (AVH) severity and amplitude of the activations during language tasks. The present study assessed the time course of this correlation and its possible structural underpinnings by combining structural, functional MRI and repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS).

Methods: Nine schizophrenia patients with AVH (evaluated with the Auditory Hallucination Rating scale; AHRS) and nine healthy participants underwent two sessions of an fMRI speech listening paradigm.

Disentangling the brain networks supporting affective speech comprehension.

Areas involved in social cognition, such as the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the left temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) appear to be active during the classification of sentences according to emotional criteria (happy, angry or sad, [Beaucousin et al., 2007]). These two regions are frequently co-activated in studies about theory of mind (ToM).

Familial sinistrality and handedness in patients with first episode schizophrenia: the EUFEST study.

The population with schizophrenia is characterised by a leftward shift in handedness-sinistrality. However, findings are inconsistent in chronic patients, and familial sinistrality (FS), defined as the presence of left-handed close relatives, might contribute to the discrepancies. Therefore the aim of this study was to investigate the strength of manual lateralisation in patients with first episode schizophrenia, taking into account familial sinistrality.

Reproducibility of fMRI activations during a story listening task in patients with schizophrenia.

A prerequisite to longitudinal fMRI studies in schizophrenia is the knowledge on fMRI signal reliability in schizophrenia patients. We assessed the reproducibility of activations elicited by two fMRI sessions, which were 21 months apart, of a story listening paradigm in 10 schizophrenia patients and 10 healthy subjects. In both groups, we observed a high degree of spatial overlap of activation maps as well as a good reproducibility of signal variations assessed on a voxel-wise basis in temporal areas underlying early stages of language processing.

Language lateralization in left-handed patients with schizophrenia.

We evaluated hemispheric lateralization of language production in non-right-handed (NRH) patients with schizophrenia compared with matched right-handed (RH) patients, NRH control, and RH control subjects. First, the ability to generate verbs during overt training trials was checked in 78 subjects. They were then evaluated with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while performing a covert verb generation task.

A common neural system is activated in hearing non-signers to process French sign language and spoken French.

We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the areas activated by signed narratives in non-signing subjects naïve to sign language (SL) and compared it to the activation obtained when hearing speech in their mother tongue. A subset of left hemisphere (LH) language areas activated when participants watched an audio-visual narrative in their mother tongue was activated when they observed a signed narrative. The inferior frontal (IFG) and precentral (Prec) gyri, the posterior parts of the planum temporale (pPT) and of the superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), and the occipito-temporal junction (OTJ) were activated by both languages.

Left hemisphere lateralization for language in right-handers is controlled in part by familial sinistrality, manual preference strength, and head size.

We investigated the effects of familial sinistrality (FS+; presence of left-handedness in one's close relatives), manual preference strength (MPS), and head size on the hemispheric lateralization of language in right-handers. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to map 49 individuals while listening to a story in their mother tongue. We found that individuals who had both the FS+ trait and weak MPS had no left hemisphere dominance for this lexicosyntactic task, whereas others showed a leftward functional asymmetry.

Impact of cognitive performance on the reproducibility of fMRI activation in schizophrenia.

Background: Longitudinal functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies in patients with schizophrenia allow exploration of the course of the illness and brain activity after therapy. A crucial question, however, is whether fMRI findings are reliable, because they can be affected by performance deficits in patients with schizophrenia. Our aim was to evaluate the reproducibility of fMRI activations in highly integrated language areas in patients with schizophrenia, taking into account task performance.

Two-day treatment of auditory hallucinations by high frequency rTMS guided by cerebral imaging: a 6 month follow-up pilot study.

Background: Recently, repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) has been introduced as an alternative treatment for auditory hallucinations in schizophrenic patients that fail to respond to antipsychotics. Until now, application of rTMS has been at low frequency, and most commonly applied to the left temporoparietal cortex. This 6-month follow-up pilot study was performed to demonstrate the efficacy of high frequency rTMS guided by anatomical and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).

The early context effect reflects activity in the temporo-prefrontal semantic system: evidence from electrical neuroimaging of abstract and concrete word reading.

Spatial and temporal characteristics of lexico-semantic retrieval are frequently examined with semantic context (i.e., priming) paradigms.