Schizophrenia is a complex and heterogeneous psychiatric disorder, characterized by diverse patterns of psychological dysfunction and a subsequent decline in everyday functional ability. But while clinical features may differ be-tween individuals, generalized cognitive impairments are a core illness feature. Cognitive deficits are predictive of long-term functional outcome, and thus rep-resent a key treatment target in schizophrenia. Cognitive remediation (CR) therapy is an evidence-based psychosocial rehabilitation program that has been shown to reliably improve cognition in people with schizophrenia and promote the transfer of cognitive gains to everyday functioning. However, the neural mechanisms underlying these cognitive improvements are largely unknown, particularly as they relate to the baseline pathophysiology of schizophrenia. This study used Seed-based d Mapping: Permutation of Study Images (SDM-PSI) to conduct a meta-analysis investigating the neural correlates of CR. Aggregating data from 13 primary research articles, we revealed moderate-to-large increases in functional activation in the left prefrontal cortex following CR when compared to a non-treatment control condition (z = 3.202, cluster size = 3279 voxels, p = 0.001). We also observed preliminary evidence of systematic differences between drill-and-practice and strategy training approaches to CR, and between studies using cognitive and social-cognitive scanner tasks. Our main results suggest that CR promotes regionally specific mechanisms of learning-induced plasticity, despite varying study and treatment characteristics. Contrasting schizophrenia's often inconsistent pathophysiological features, the observed neural effects could inform new, broadly effective treatments.
"},{"label":"Degree","value":["Bachelor of Arts with Departmental Honors"]},{"label":"Author-supplied Keywords","value":["Cognitive remediation","Schizophrenia","Functional activation"]},{"label":"Administrative Note","value":"Drupal Node ID: 23967