Schizophrenia is a devastating disease with severe consequences for its sufferers' ability to function independently in society. It is characterized by hallucinations, delusions, language dysfunction, and compromised social skills that together contribute to serious difficulties in communicating with others. While it is distinctly different from such communication disorders as autism, it can be described as a disorder of communication, where effective tools of communication such as linguistic and social skills are compromised. Schizophrenia patients are known to experience two broad classes of communication difficulties: problems in conveying meaning to others (expressive language) and disturbances in understanding the messages of others (receptive language). At the same time, recent research on neural underpinnings of schizophrenia points not only to abnormalities in specific brain regions, but importantly, to abnormal communication between, and within, brain regions, such that in some theoretic conceptualizations, schizophrenia is described as a “disconnection” syndrome. Full understanding of communication difficulties in schizophrenia is lacking both at the level of observable behavior as well as at the level of neural mechanisms that underlie these abnormalities. The “disconnection” within and between brain regions both in terms of anatomical and functional connections is also still poorly understood.

We invite investigators to contribute original research articles as well as review articles that address the issue of disordered communication in schizophrenia and its underlying causes and inform current thinking on this subject. We are interested in papers using a variety of techniques including behavioral, but especially functional, imaging methodology: ERP, EEG, fMRI, and DTI approaches. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Abnormalities in semantic memory in schizophrenia
• Abnormalities in language processing including semantic and syntactic abnormalities in schizophrenia
• Abnormalities in affect processing from face and voice cues
• Advances in characterizing white matter abnormalities in schizophrenia
• Advances in delineating gamma-range abnormalities in schizophrenia
• Techniques and findings related to functional connectivity in schizophrenia

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