Emotion processing in treatment-resistant schizophrenia patients treated with clozapine: An fMRI study.

Objectives: To examine the neural correlates of emotion processing in treatment-resistant patients with schizophrenia (SCZ-TR).

Methods: Twenty-two SCZ-TR patients on clozapine, 24 schizophrenia patients on antipsychotics other than clozapine, and 39 healthy controls were scanned using functional neuroimaging while viewing positive, negative and neutral images.

Results: Emotionally-laden images (positive and negative) elicited hyper-activations in the dorso-medial prefrontal cortex and left cerebellum in SCZ-TR patients, compared to the two other groups. Similarly, neutral images prompted hyper-activations in the cingulate gyrus in SCZ-TR patients, relative to the two other groups.

Conclusions: Treatment resistance is associated with neuro-functional hyper-activations in schizophrenia patients during emotion processing.