A REVIEW ON THALAMO-CORTICAL FUNCTIONAL CONNECTIVITY IN PATIENTS WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA

Abstract

Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder that causes a series of symptoms that affect how a person perceives the world around them. There have been many studies researching the way that connectivity between specific brain regions are altered due to the onset of schizophrenia, and many have concluded that the thalamus is one of the most important brain regions associated with altered functional connectivity in patients with schizophrenia. The purpose of this review is to evaluate this altered functional connectivity and to determine how different connectivity patterns determine different symptoms that are typically associated with schizophrenia. Through conducting a literature search in PubMed on articles relating to schizophrenia, the thalamus, and independent component analysis, we found that hyper-connectivity between the thalamus and areas of the brain such as the auditory, motor, and visual networks is associated with the ‘positive’ symptoms of schizophrenia such as hallucinations and delusions. We also found that hypo-connectivity between the thalamus and areas like prefrontal regions of the brain is correlated with the ‘negative’ symptoms such as deficits in working memory and decision-making. This information could lead to further studies looking into how thalamo-cortical connections influence the perception of different stimuli.