Imaging genetic liability to schizophrenia: systematic review of FMRI studies of patients3 nonpsychotic relatives

There is a growing literature on brain activity in the non-psychotic first-degree relatives of patients with schizophre-nia as measured using functional imaging. This systematic review examined 20 studies in 4 domains of cognition, in-cluding cognitive control (7 samples), working memory (5 samples), long-term memory (4 samples), and language (4 samples). While the literature was widely divergent, these studies did consistently find activation differences be-tween patients ’ relatives and controls. The most consistent increases in activation within hemisphere were found in right ventral prefrontal cortex (PFC) and right parietal cortex. Abnormal activity, defined as significant increases or decreases in activation relative to controls irrespective of hemisphere, was found in about two-thirds of contrasts in the cerebellum, dorsal prefrontal, lateral temporal, and pa