34.2 SOCIAL COGNITIVE NETWORK CONNECTIVITY SUPPORTS A NETWORK EFFICIENCY MODEL FOR BETTER SOCIAL COGNITIVE PERFORMANCE ACROSS SCHIZOPHRENIA SPECTRUM DISORDERS AND HEALTHY CONTROLS

摘要

Schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs) often feature social cognitive impairments, which have been associated with functional outcome. These include lower-level processes (emotion recognition), thought to be sub-served by a frontoparietal mirroring network, and higher-level mentalizing processes (theory of mind), involving cortical midline and lateral temporal regions. Atypical functional connectivity has also been consistently observed in SSDs. However, it is unclear whether altered connectivity in putative social cognitive brain networks may underlie social deficits in SSDs. Thus, our objective was to identify the neural circuitry underlying social cognition across a large group of individuals with SSDs and healthy controls and determine how within and between network connectivity relates to social cognitive performance and functional outcome. We hypothesized that increased connectivity in the mentalizing network and decreased connectivity in the mirroring network during a complex social cognitive task would be associated with better social cognitive performance, aligning with a network efficiency model.