Overcoming psychomotor slowing in psychosis - a combined neuroimaging and transcranial magnetic stimulation study on the pathophysiology of motor slowing

Description: Description: Schizophrenia is a chronic disorder causing tremendous burden to the patients, families and society. Besides prominent symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions, and thought disorder, the majority of patients also experiences motor abnormalities. Converging evidence links aberrant structure and function of the cerebral motor network to schizophrenia pathology, particularly to motor abnormalities. One of the most frequent motor abnormalities is psychomotor slowing (PS), which may impact both gross and fine motor behavior. While PS causes significant distress and predicts poor outcome, researchers are just starting to understand its pathobiology. First evidence points to aberrant functional and structural connectivity within the cerebral motor network in schizophrenia patients with PS, particularly in connections between premotor/motor cortex and thalamus, as well as between motor cortex and cerebellum. In addition, severe motor inhibition was linked to increased neural activity in the premotor cortex. The pathobiology of PS, however, is still unknown. One of the main aims of the proposed project is to characterize neural correlates of psychomotor slowing (PS) on the network level, Related Publications: https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbac120 https://doi.org/10.1111/ejn.15865 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.schres.2022.10.004 This project was funded by SNSF. Grant number 182469 (https://data.snf.ch/grants/grant/182469)