This finding is encouraging in that rehabilitation could possibly ameliorate deficits. Gaze direction is another modulator of amygdala response. In healthy people, directed fear and averted anger expressions produced greater amygdala response than averted fear and directed anger.

This effect was interpreted to suggest that the amygdala is especially sensitive to threat-related ambiguity. Since poor eye contact is a major feature of impaired social interactions in schizophrenia, gaze direction and evaluation of the patient’s ability to use information in the eyes region seems the most appropriate target for the Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical next phase of investigation. Although scan-path Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical studies reported a restricted range of visual scanning in schizophrenia for happy, sad, and neutral

faces, these studies have not indicated a difference between the eyes and the mouth region. However, fear and anger stimuli have not been used. Because amygdala damage leads to avoidance of the eyes region in fearful faces, and the eyes region is important for distinguishing anger from fear, the difficulty of patients in identifying fear could be related to impairment in recognizing changes in the eyes region, thereby diminishing amygdala response to Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical fear in the eyes relative to the mouth region. As with other bottom-up activation abnormalities, we expect the severity of these abnormalities to be associated with poorer eye contact and affective Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical flattening. Pharmacology The INCB28060 literature on the possible effects of antipsychotic agents on BOLD signal change is relatively limited.21,22 Few studies have examined neuroleptic-naïve patients, and fewer still applied a pre -post paradigm. Furthermore, small samples and methodologically limited designs have precluded systematic examination of the possible effects of therapeutics. Examples of studies include a working memory evaluation with an n-back paradigm after patients Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical switched from first-generation antipsychotics

to a second generation agent. Increased dosolateral prefrontal cortex and parietal cortex activity were reported in the patients with the new treatment.23 Similarly, normalization of brain activity was reported in patients treated with long-acting risperidone compared with conventional depot medication while performing an n-back task.24 Normalization of prepulse inhibition was noted in patients treated with olanzapine Calpain and risperidone compared with those on first-generation antipsychotics.25 Studies that examined motor control in relation to medications have also noted improved brain activity in patients treated with second-generation agents compared with first generation antipsychotics. Given the limited number and scope of the available literature, there is no conclusive evidence, and double-blind studies are needed.