GABA Concentration Is Reduced in Visual Cortex in Schizophrenia and Correlates with Orientation-Specific Surround Suppression

摘要: The neural mechanisms underlying cognitive deficits in schizophrenia remain essentially unknown. GABA hypothesis proposes that reduced neuronal concentration and neurotransmission results impairments schizophrenia. However, few vivo studies have directly examined this hypothesis. We used magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) at high field to measure visual cortical levels 13 subjects with demographically matched healthy control subjects. found the group had an ∼10% reduction concentration. further tested by examining relationship between orientation-specific surround suppression (OSSS), a behavioral of inhibition thought be dependent on GABAergic synaptic transmission. Previous work has shown exhibit OSSS contrast discrimination (Yoon et al., 2009). For both MRS data (n = 16), we highly significant positive correlation (r 0.76) these variables. was not correlated overall performance for stimuli without −0.10). These suggest neocortical deficit leads impaired transmission cortex plays critical role OSSS.