Hyperintentionality during automatic perception of naturalistic cooperative behavior in patients with schizophrenia

Abstract

Social cognition and the corresponding functionality of involved brain networks are essential for effortless social interaction. Patients with schizophrenia exhibit impaired social functioning. In this study, we focused on the neural networks involved in the automatic perception of cooperative behavior and their alterations in schizophrenia.

We performed a functional magnetic resonance imaging study of 19 schizophrenia patients and 19 healthy matched controls. Participants watched a set of short videos with two actors manipulating objects, either with (C+) or without cooperation (C–). Additionally, we assessed delusional symptoms in patients using the Scales for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms and psychosis proneness in healthy controls using the brief schizotypal personality questionnaire.

The observed group-by-condition interaction revealed a contrasting activation pattern for patients versus healthy controls in the medial and lateral prefrontal cortex, the middle cingulate cortex, and the left angular gyrus. Furthermore, increased activation of the middle prefrontal areas, left angular gyrus, and the posterior sulcus temporalis superior in response to the noncooperative condition (C–) was positively correlated with delusional symptoms in patients.

Our findings suggest an overactivated “theory of mind” network in patients for the processing of noncooperative behavior. Thus, “overmentalizing” might be based on delusions and altered processing of cooperative behavior in patients with schizophrenia.

Keywords:

• Cooperative behavior
• Persecutory delusion
• fMRI
• Schizophrenia
• ToM

This work was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research [BMBF, FKZ 01GW0751]. We are very grateful to Mathias Kauff for very useful comments on the manuscript and Mechthild Wallnig for her help with the fMRI data collection. The authors have declared that there are no conflicts of interest in relation to the subject of this study.