Abstract #2701

Carpenter D, Tang C, Friedman J, Pantol G

Hypotheses of functional disconnectivity (lack of communication) between different brain regions attempt to explain several psychiatric disorders. In the case of schizophrenia, it has been proposed that the cortical-thalamic pathways are disrupted. This disconnect can be due to a damage to the connecting pathways (white matter tracts) or due to an imbalance of neurochemistry. In the past these two mechanisms of disconnected communication have been investigated indirectly using synchronous analysis of functional brain imaging data (e.g. PET & fMRI) or directly by looking at the integrity of white matter tracts using Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) [1,2]. Here we sought to investigate the nature of this disconnect by simultaneously looking at the relationship between two schizophrenia abnormalities: 1) the synchronous activation signal in two functionally connected areas in the brain; with 2) the integrity of the interconnecting white matter fibers.