LANGUAGE PROCESSING IN SCHIZOPHRENIA

Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston MA

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Abstract

DESCRIPTION: (Adapted from applicant's abstract)This is a request for an NIMH Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award (K-23) entitled 'The Cognitive Neuroscience of Language Processing in Schizophrenia'. A disorder of thought and language has long been considered a core feature of schizophrenia. The candidate will test the hypothesis that such language abnormalities arise from specific cognitive and neural deficits in processing meaning (semantics). To address this question, she aims to acquire training in three complementary methodologies. First, psycholinguistic paradigms will be used to define the specific nature of language processing deficits in schizophrenia at a cognitive level. Second, electrophysiological experiments will determine the timing 01 neurophysiological abnormalities during language processing in schizophrenia, by examining the latency and amplitude of the N400- an event related potential that is known to be sensitive to semantic context. Third, event-related fMRI studies will characterize the functional neuroanatomy of language processing deficits in schizophrenia, by examining activity within the temporal and the inferior frontal cortex (particularly on the left) regions that are known to mediate semantic processing. The use of these three methodologies to address the same fundamental questions will give insights into the cognitive and neural basis of language dysfunction in schizophrenia, in both spatial and temporal domains. Additional didactic instruction and expert mentorship, in cognitive neuroscience, psycholinguistics and advanced statistics, will provide the theoretical framework and the analytical tools to integrate across these three methodologies, both conceptually and quantitatively. This training and research program will advance the candidate to the stage when she can establish herself as an independent investigator of the cognitive neuroscience of schizophrenia.