Abstract
The simple mismatch negativity (MMN) to tones deviating physically (in pitch, loudness, duration, etc.) from repeated standard tones is robustly reduced in schizophrenia. Although generally interpreted to reflect memory or cognitive processes, simple MMN likely contains some activity from non-adapted sensory cells, clouding what process is affected in schizophrenia. Research in healthy participants has demonstrated that MMN can be elicited by deviations from abstract auditory patterns and complex rules that do not cause sensory adaptation. Whether persons with schizophrenia show abnormalities in the complex MMN is unknown. Fourteen schizophrenia participants and 16 matched healthy underwent EEG recording while listening to 400 groups of 6 tones 330 ms apart, separated by 800 ms. Occasional deviant groups were missing the 4th or 6th tone (50 groups each). Healthy participants generated a robust response to a missing but expected tone. The schizophrenia group was significantly impaired in activating the missing stimulus MMN, generating no significant activity at all. Schizophrenia affects the ability of “primitive sensory intelligence” and pre-attentive perceptual mechanisms to form implicit groups in the auditory environment. Importantly, this deficit must relate to abnormalities in abstract complex pattern analysis rather than sensory problems in the disorder. The results indicate a deficit in parsing of the complex auditory scene which likely impacts negatively on successful social navigation in schizophrenia. Knowledge of the location and circuit architecture underlying the true novelty-related MMN and its pathophysiology in schizophrenia will help target future interventions.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by NIH R01 MH094328. Data were collected while the author was faculty at McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School. Data were analyzed at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Thanks to Elizabeth Ronan and Abigail Laufer (McLean), and Christiana Butera, Timothy Murphy, Sarah Haigh, and Brian Coffman (WPIC) for assistance with data acquisition and analysis. In addition, the authors had full access to all of the data in the study and take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.
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Salisbury, D.F., McCathern, A.G. Abnormal Complex Auditory Pattern Analysis in Schizophrenia Reflected in an Absent Missing Stimulus Mismatch Negativity. Brain Topogr 29, 867–874 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10548-016-0514-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10548-016-0514-2