Precentral and inferior prefrontal hypoactivation during facial emotion recognition in patients with schizophrenia: A functional near-infrared spectroscopy study

Although patients with schizophrenia demonstrate abnormal processing of emotional face recognition, the neural substrates underlying this process remain unclear. We previously showed abnormal fronto-temporal function during facial expression of emotions, and cognitive inhibition in patients with schizophrenia using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). The aim of the current study was to use fNIRS to identify which brain regions involved in recognizing emotional faces are impaired in patients with schizophrenia, and to determine the neural substrates underlying the response to emotional facial expressions per se, and to facial expressions with cognitive inhibition. We recruited 19 patients with schizophrenia and 19 healthy controls, statistically matched on age, sex, and premorbid IQ. Brain function was measured by fNIRS during emotional face assessment and face identification tasks. Patients with schizophrenia showed lower activation of the right precentral and inferior frontal areas during the emotional face task compared to controls. Further, patients with schizophrenia were slower and less accurate in completing tasks compared to healthy participants. Decreasing performance was associated with increasing severity of the disease. Our present and prior studies suggest that the impaired behavioral performance in schizophrenia is associated with different mechanisms for processing emotional facial expressions versus facial expressions combined with cognitive inhibition.