PDF(Pubmed)
Abstract：
It has remained unclear whether individuals with psychiatric disorders involving altered visual processing employ similar neuronal mechanisms during perceptual learning of a visual task. We investigated this question by training patients with body dysmorphic disorder, a psychiatric disorder characterized by distressing or impairing preoccupation with nonexistent or slight defects in one\'s physical appearance, and healthy controls on a visual detection task for human faces with low spatial frequency components. Brain activation during task performance was measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging before the beginning and after the end of behavioral training. Both groups of participants improved performance on the trained task to a similar extent. However, neuronal changes in the fusiform face area were substantially different between groups such that activation for low spatial frequency faces in the right fusiform face area increased after training in body dysmorphic disorder patients but decreased in controls. Moreover, functional connectivity between left and right fusiform face area decreased after training in patients but increased in controls. Our results indicate that neuronal mechanisms involved in perceptual learning of a face detection task differ fundamentally between body dysmorphic disorder patients and controls. Such different neuronal mechanisms in body dysmorphic disorder patients might reflect the brain\'s adaptations to altered functions imposed by the psychiatric disorder.
摘要：
尚不清楚患有涉及视觉处理改变的精神疾病的个体在视觉任务的感知学习过程中是否采用类似的神经元机制。我们通过训练身体畸形患者来研究这个问题，一种精神病，其特征是令人痛苦或损害专注于一个人的外表不存在或轻微的缺陷，和健康控制对具有低空间频率分量的人脸的视觉检测任务。在行为训练开始之前和结束之后，通过功能磁共振成像测量任务执行过程中的大脑激活。两组参与者都以相似的程度提高了经过训练的任务的绩效。然而,梭形面部区域的神经元变化在组间有很大差异，因此在身体畸形障碍患者的训练后，右梭形面部区域低空间频率面部的激活增加，但在对照组中减少。此外，左右梭形面部区域之间的功能连接在患者训练后下降，但在对照组中增加。我们的结果表明，在身体畸形障碍患者和对照组之间，参与面部检测任务的感知学习的神经元机制根本不同。身体畸形障碍患者中这种不同的神经元机制可能反映了大脑对精神疾病所施加的功能改变的适应。
