Cited by 1,158Schizophrenia research and treatmentNeural and Behavioral Psychology StudiesNeurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior

Meta-analysis of 41 functional neuroimaging studies of executive function in schizophrenia

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Minzenberg, Michael J., Laird, Angela R., Thelen, Sarah, Carter, Cameron S., Glahn, David C.·2009·Archives of General Psychiatry

Abstract

CONTEXT: Prefrontal cortical dysfunction is frequently reported in schizophrenia. It remains unclear whether this represents the coincidence of several prefrontal region- and process-specific impairments or a more unitary dysfunction in a superordinate cognitive control network. Whether these impairments are properly considered reflective of hypofrontality vs hyperfrontality remains unresolved. OBJECTIVES: To test whether common nodes of the cognitive control network exhibit altered activity across functional neuroimaging studies of executive cognition in schizophrenia and to evaluate the direction of these effects. DATA SOURCES: PubMed database. STUDY SELECTION: Forty-one English-language, peer-reviewed articles published prior to February 2007 were included. All reports used functional neuroimaging during executive function performance by adult patients with schizophrenia and reported whole-brain analyses in standard stereotactic space. Tasks primarily included the delayed match-to-sample, N-back, AX-CPT, and Stroop tasks. DATA EXTRACTION: Activation likelihood estimation modeling reported activation maxima as the center of a 3-dimensional gaussian function in the meta-analysis, with statistical thresholding and correction for multiple comparisons. DATA SYNTHESIS: In within-group analyses, healthy controls and patients activated a similarly distributed cortical-subcortical network, prominently including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC), ventrolateral PFC, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and thalamus. In between-group analyses, patients showed reduced activation in the left dorsolateral PFC, rostral/dorsal ACC, left thalamus (with significant co-occurrence of these areas), and inferior/posterior cortical areas. Increased activation was observed in several midline cortical areas. Activation within groups varied modestly by task. CONCLUSIONS: Healthy adults and schizophrenic patients activate a qualitatively similar neural network during executive task performance, consistent with the engagement of a general-purpose cognitive control network, with critical nodes in the dorsolateral PFC and ACC. Nevertheless, patients with schizophrenia show altered activity with deficits in the dorsolateral PFC, ACC, and mediodorsal nucleus of the thalamus. Increases in activity are evident in other PFC areas, which could be compensatory in nature.

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  • OCD and schizophrenia patients may exhibit abnormal neural activities in frontostriatal and frontoparietal networks while performing tasks related to inhibition and shifting, suggesting disrupted inhibition-related and shifting-related circuitries as shared deficits across these two disorders.

    “Obsessive-compulsive disorder patients and SCZ patients may exhibit abnormal neural activities in the frontostriatal (eg, cingulate cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) and frontoparietal (eg, parietal cortex) networks while performing tasks related to inhibition 26 ,29-31 and shifting, 14 ,32-35 suggesting disrupted inhibition-related and shifting-related circuitries as shared deficits across”

    From Cognitive Inflexibility Shares Across Schizophrenia and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: A Task-Based Functional MRI Study (2025) · cites this paper as [29]

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  • Impaired activation of visual regions has been observed in meta-analyses of visual working memory tasks.

    “impaired activation of visual regions has been observed in meta-analyses of visual working memory tasks (93)”

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Authors
Minzenberg, M. J., Laird, A. R., Thelen, S., Carter, C. S., & Glahn, D. C.
Affiliations
  • University of California Davis Medical Center (US)
  • The University of Texas at San Antonio Health Science Center (US)
Venue
Archives of General Psychiatry
Published
2009-08-01
Volume
66
Issue
8
Pages
811
ISSN
0003-990X (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2103655132
Cited by
1,158
References
64
Citations by year
2026: 38 · 2025: 41 · 2024: 116 · 2023: 27 · 2022: 54 · 2021: 72 · 2020: 61 · 2019: 75 · 2018: 78 · 2017: 78 · 2016: 81 · 2015: 93 · 2014: 78 · 2013: 92 · 2012: 54
FWCI
7.31
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Archives of General Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institute of Mental Health (MH 059883, R01MH074457, R01MH059883)
  • National Center for Research Resources (UL1RR024146)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Schizophrenia research and treatment
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
Keywords
schizophrenia, executive function, cognitive control network, prefrontal cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, thalamus, mediodorsal thalamus, hypofrontality, neural compensation, delayed matching-to-sample, N-back, Stroop task, AX-CPT
MeSH terms
Adult, Brain, Cognition Disorders, Gyrus Cinguli, Humans, Functional Laterality, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Neuropsychological Tests, Schizophrenia, Prefrontal Cortex, Mediodorsal Thalamic Nucleus, Positron-Emission Tomography

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