Face processing is crucial for social interaction, but impaired in schizophrenia in terms of delays and misperceptions of identity and affective content. One important functional region for early stages of human face processing is the right fusiform face area. Thus, this region might be affected in schizophrenia. Aim of the study was to investigate whether face processing deficits are related to dysfunctions of the right fusiform face area in schizophrenics compared to controls.

In a rapid event-related fMRI design encoding of new faces as well as the recognition of newly learned, famous, and unknown faces was investigated in 13 schizophrenics and 21 healthy controls. Region of interest analysis was applied to each individual's right fusiform face area and tested for group differences.

Controls displayed more BOLD activation during the memorization of faces that were later successfully recognized. In schizophrenics this effect was not present. During the recognition task schizophrenics had lower BOLD responses, less accuracy, as well as longer reaction times to famous and unknown faces.

Our results support the hypothesis that impaired face processing in schizophrenia is related to early stage deficits during the encoding and immediate recognition of faces.