IMPAIRED RESTING-STATE ANTERIOR PREFRONTAL FUNCTIONAL CONNECTIVITY ASSOCIATED WITH PROSPECTIVE MEMORY DEFICITS IN SCHIZOPHRENIA

Abstract Background Prospective memory (PM) deficit is one of the most common cognitive impairments of patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs). PM deficits have been associated with social functioning impairment, poor adherence to drugs and adverse clinical outcome. Previous studies have atributed the PM deficits in schizophrenia to the failure of cue detection and intention retrieval. In healthy people, these cognitive processes reflect the ability of strategic monitoring, which heavily rely on the functional network of anterior prefrontal cortex (aPFC) and related brain regions. This suggests that PM deficits in SSDs patients may be due to aPFC functional connectivity impairments. Aims & Objectives The aim of the present study is to compare the resting-state aPFC functional connectivity between patients with SSDs and healthy controls, and to examine whether the PM deficits in SSDs patients are due to aPFC functional connectivity impairments. Method Sixty-three SSDs patients and 32 healthy controls (HCs) formed the study sample. Time- and event-based PM (TBPM and EBPM) performance were measured with the Chinese version of the Cambridge Prospective Memory Test (C-CAMPROMPT). Patients' clinical symptoms were evaluated with the Positive and Negative Symptom Scale (PANSS). All participants underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Left and right BA 10 were chosen as seeds to perform seed-based whole brain voxels resting-state functional connectivity analyses. Results Compared to HCs, SSDs patients demonstrated significantly worse PM performance and attenuated functional connectivity between right aPFC and precuneus (x= -9, y= -51, z=45), a key hub of the default mode. The correlation analysis results showed that the aforementioned functional connectivity in the SSDs group was significantly positively correlated with EBPM parformance (r= 0.319, P=0.013). No significant correlation analysis results were found between the functional connectivity and EBPM within the HC group. Discussion & Conclusion The results indicate that aPFC resting-state networks are affected in SSDs patients. The reduced magnitude of resting state functional connectivity between right aPFC and precuneus is a key marker of information processing failure underlying PM impairments in SSDs patients.