Twenty-eight patients with schizophrenia (16 with long disease duration (> 60 months) and 12 with short disease duration (< 60 months)) and eleven healthy controls underwent structural and functional MRI during an n-back task to determine atrophy and activation patterns.
At similar n-back performances and relative to short disease duration patients, long disease duration patients activated more frontal temporal parietal and frontal network during 0-back and 1-back tasks respectively. n-back scores were correlated to atrophy in the frontal-temporal areas.
Functional reorganization in the working memory network may play a compensatory role during the first ten years of schizophrenia.