Cognitive control impairments are regarded as a core feature of schizophrenia, but relatively little is known about the large-scale connectivity abnormalities that give rise to such deficits. Our results suggest that the first episode of schizophrenia is associated with specific cognitive-control-related functional connectivity deficits in a circumscribed network of frontoparietal regions, which occur against a background of a more pervasive and generalized impairment affecting the connectivity of frontal regions with the rest of the brain. These connectivity impairments parallel, and may therefore underlie, the profile of general and specific cognitive deficits known to characterize the disorder.
