Study of Functional MRI in First-episode Schizophrenic Patients before and after Antipsychotic Drugs Treatment

] Objective:To explore the characteristics of functional areas of backward digit span tasks by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in first-episode schizophrenic patients before and after antipsychotic drugs treatment.Methods:18 healthy volunteers,18 first-episode drug-naive schizophrenic patients diagnosed with ICD-10 and 9 of them who were received the treatment of chlorpromazine were undergone the fMRI examination while performing a backward digit span task.Results:During the BDST task,the activated functional areas in healthy volunteers included bilateral middle frontal gyrus,left superior frontal gyrus,inferior frontal gyrus,precentral gyrus,superior parietal lobe,supramarginal gyrus,inferior temporal gyrus and occipitotemporalis lateralis gyrus.However,the left superior frontal gyrus,inferior frontal gyrus and bilateral posterior parietal cortex in schizophrenic patients showed significantly less activation.Post-treatment of chlorpromazine,the activated areas of the left superior frontal gyrus and left inferior frontal gyrus of the patients increased evidently (P0.05).Conclusion:fMRI is a promising method to diagnose schizophrenia and evaluate the antipsychotic drugs.