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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Schizophrenia
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1539112
Reduced finger tapping speed in patients with schizophrenia and psychomotor slowing: An exploratory fMRI study
Provisionally accepted
Florian Wüthrich 1* Marc o Zindel 2
Niluja Nadesalingam 2
Melanie Nuoffer 2 Alexandra Kyrou 3
Jessica Bernard 4 Stewart A Shankman 5
Vijay Mittal 5
Stephanie Lefebvre 2* Sebastian Walther 2,6- 1 University Hospital of Old Age Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
- 2 University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
- 3 University Hospital Zürich, Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland
- 4 Texas A and M University, College Station, Texas, United States
- 5 Nothwestern College, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, United States
- 6 University Hospital Würzburg, Würzburg, Bavaria, Germany
Motor symptoms are frequent in patients with schizophrenia and have multiple presentations, one of which is psychomotor slowing. Understanding the neural basis of psychomotor slowing may help improve future therapies in schizophrenia. Here, we performed task-fMRI using a finger-tapping task in slowed patients.The study included 36 patients with schizophrenia and psychomotor slowing (Salpêtrière-Retardation-Rating-Scale-Score (SRRS) >15), 11 non-slowed patients with schizophrenia, and 33 healthy controls who successfully performed a motor task during fMRI, with four conditions: paced and fast thumbindex finger tapping and thumb alternating finger opposition. The performance was videotaped and taps were counted. We compared task-related neural substrates between groups, task complexity and movement onset. Slowed patients with schizophrenia showed significantly lower tapping speed than controls in both unpaced conditions (Δ=-.80 (CI=-1.46; -.14)taps/s, p=.019; Δ=-.80 (CI=-1.32; -.28)taps/s, p=.003) while non-slowed patients had a tapping speed between the other two groups.In both task complexity and movement onset factor levels, all the groups activated sensorimotor areas.Slowed patients had no regulation of the task-dependent cerebellar involvement while showing insufficient deactivation of the SPL, pointing to altered recruitment of neural resources in response to motor demands in schizophrenia especially when associated with psychomotor slowing.
Keywords: Schizophrenia, psychosis, fMRI, Task-fMRI, Finger-tapping, psychomotor slowing Deleted: task activations Supplementary Table S2, Supplementary Figure Line spacing: Double
Received: 03 Dec 2024; Accepted: 21 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wüthrich, Zindel, Nadesalingam, Nuoffer, Kyrou, Bernard, Shankman, Mittal, Lefebvre and Walther. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Florian Wüthrich, University Hospital of Old Age Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Stephanie Lefebvre, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
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