Is the Sense of Agency in Schizophrenia Influenced by Resting-State Variation in Self-Referential Regions of the Brain?
Schizophrenia Bulletin July 28, 2015 Jeffrey D. Robinson, Nils-Frederic Wagner, Georg Northoff 47 citations
Schizophrenia involves a disturbance of the self, particularly the sense of agency—the feeling of controlling one's own actions and thoughts. Current models of agency involve both bottom-up sensory processes and top-down cognitive influences. This review proposes that ongoing brain activity in self-referential regions, especially the default mode network, adds a deeper layer of influence. Neuroimaging studies show that aberrant activity in these regions in schizophrenia can lead to misattributing internally generated stimuli as external, producing symptoms like thought insertion and delusions of control. This framework suggests neuroimaging can improve conceptualization, measurement, and treatment of agency disturbances.