A study of cerebral glucose metabolism and hemodynamic response in schizophrenia

This research investigated the relationship between regional cerebral glucose metabolism rate (rGMR) of [18F] fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) and hemodynamic response of blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) fMRI in schizophrenia. An auditory prepulse-to-attention task was performed during the FDG uptake and the fMRI scan, and PET and fMRI images were obtained for 10 unmedicated schizophrenia patients and 7 healthy controls. Hemodynamic response curves were extracted from several brain regions and the area under the curve (AUC) was calculated and correlated with corresponding rGMR. The results indicated that (1) The rGMR and hemodynamic responses were significantly correlated in the frontal and temporal cortices, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), caudate and thalamus for all subjects; (2) The patterns of the correlations are different between patients and controls. These results suggest that schizophrenia patients may have altered blood flow-metabolic processes during neuronal activities underlying attention deficits, which may be useful for early diagnosis of schizophrenia.