Systematic Reviews
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Psychiatr. Mar 22, 2017; 7(1): 34-43
Published online Mar 22, 2017. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v7.i1.34
Neuroimaging studies of cognitive remediation in schizophrenia: A systematic and critical review
Rafael Penadés, Alexandre González-Rodríguez, Rosa Catalán, Bàrbara Segura, Miquel Bernardo, Carme Junqué
Rafael Penadés, Alexandre González-Rodríguez, Rosa Catalán, Miquel Bernardo, Department of Psychiatry and Psychology, Clinical Institute of Neurosciences, Hospital Clínic, 08036 Barcelona, Spain
Bàrbara Segura, Carme Junqué, Neuropsychology Lab, University of Barcelona, 08036 Barcelona, Spain
Bàrbara Segura, Carme Junqué, Institut d’Investigacions, Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer, 08036 Barcelona, Spain
Author contributions: Penadés R designed the research; Gónzalez-Rodríguez A performed the bibliographic search; Penadés R, Segura B and Junqué C analysed the data; Penadés R wrote the paper; Catalán R, Bernardo M and Junqué C supervised the paper; all of the authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by a grant from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III of Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias FIS, No. PI 11/09158 (to Penadés R).
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors declare that they have no competing interests for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Rafael Penadés, PhD, Department of Psychiatry and Psychology, Clinical Institute of Neurosciences, Hospital Clínic, C/ Villarroel 170, 08036 Barcelona, Spain. rpenades@clinic.ub.es
Telephone: +34-93-2275400 Fax: +34-93-4035294
Received: August 30, 2016
Peer-review started: September 2, 2016
First decision: September 29, 2016
Revised: October 14, 2016
Accepted: December 13, 2016
Article in press: December 14, 2016
Published online: March 22, 2017
Processing time: 201 Days and 14.7 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Cognitive remediation therapy for schizophrenia is an evidence-based psychological treatment that aims to improve cognitive dysfunction. However, its underlying neural mechanisms have not been established. Several neuroimaging studies have shown positive effects in terms of brain activation. However, the results have been heterogeneous and difficult to integrate. The primary aim of the present review was to analyse systematically all of the published trials that used neuroimaging procedures. Additionally, we performed a more qualitative analysis examining the possible influence of neuroimaging methods and the use of different theoretical frameworks.