COMT and schizophrenia: Furthermore, the use of the 52-channel NIRS in this study revealed that the significant association between the COMT genotype and prefrontal hemodynamic activation in patients with schizophrenia was most profound in the frontopolar PFC (BA10; also known as anterior or rostral PFC) and had a gradation over the prefrontal cortical area tapering from the frontopolar PFC to the more lateral PFC (dorsolateral and ventrolateral PFC) (Figure 3).