Temporal processing in schizophrenia: Effects of task-difficulty on behavioral discrimination and neuronal responses

Comparing the difficult to easy conditions revealed robust differences in the bilateral striatum and the insula/opercula, suggesting that the striatum plays a key role in temporal processing deficits in schizophrenia, especially under difficult conditions. These observations suggest that temporal judgment deficits reflect widespread neuroanatomical network involvement in schizophrenia, some of which are not directly related to task difficulty. These findings shed light on disparate findings in the timing literature regarding the role of task difficulty in temporal judgment deficits in schizophrenia.