Neurological soft signs are not “Soft” in brain structure and functional networks: evidence from ALE meta-analysis. Schizophr Bull. 2013. doi: 10.1093/ schbul/sbt063

psych.ac.cn Background: Neurological soft signs (NSS) are associ-ated with schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders. NSS have been conventionally considered as clinical neu-rological signs without localized brain regions. However, recent brain imaging studies suggest that NSS are partly localizable and may be associated with deficits in specific brain areas. Method: We conducted an activation likeli-hood estimation meta-analysis to quantitatively review structural and functional imaging studies that evaluated the brain correlates of NSS in patients with schizophre-nia and other psychotic disorders. Six structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) and 15 functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies were included. Results: The results from meta-analysis of the sMRI studies indicate