Dugré JR, et al. - The researchers carried out a functional neuroimaging meta-analysis to test the hypothesis that an aberrant limbic response to threatening stimuli lead to paranoid ideation. They retrieved a total of 23 studies involving patients with schizophrenia. Findings suggest that compared with healthy controls, patients with schizophrenia showed increased activations in the left and right amygdala and parahippocampus and the left putamen, hippocampus, and insula in response to neutral stimuli. This indicates higher activation of several limbic regions in patients with schizophrenia which strongly suggests that these patients confer aberrant emotional significance to nonthreatening stimuli. In theory, delusional thoughts may magnify in relation to this abnormal brain reactivity.