Neural mechanisms of mismatch negativity (MMN) dysfunction in schizophrenia

A sound turned off for a short moment can be perceived as continuous if the silent gap is filled with noise. The neural mechanisms underlying this “continuity illusion” were investigated using the mismatch negativity (MMN), an eventrelated potential reflecting the perception of a sudden change in an otherwise regular stimulus sequence. The MMN was recorded in four conditions using an oddball paradigm. The standards consisted of 500-Hz, 120-msec tone pips that were either physically continuous (Condition 1) or were interrupted by a 40-msec silent gap (Condition 2). The deviants consisted of the interrupted tone, but with the silent gap filled by a burst of bandpass-filtered noise. The noise either occupied the same frequency region as the tone and elicited the continuity illusion (Conditions 1a and 2a), or occupied a remote frequency region and did not elicit the illusion (Conditions 1b and 2b). We predicted that, if the continuity illusion is determined before MMN generation, then, other things being equal, the MMN should be larger in conditions where the deviants are perceived as continuous and the standards as interrupted or vice versa, than when both were perceived as continuous or both interrupted. Consistent with this prediction, we observed an interaction between standard type and noise frequency region, with the MMN being larger in Condition 1a than in Condition 1b, but smaller in Condition 2a than in Condition 2b. Because the subjects were instructed to ignore the tones and watch a silent movie during the recordings, the results indicate that the continuity illusion can occur outside the focus of attention. Furthermore, the latency of the MMN (less than approximately 200 msec postdeviance onset) places an upper limit on the stage of neural processing responsible for the illusion.

Download Full-text

Neural Mechanisms of Involuntary Attention to Acoustic Novelty and Change

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/089892998562997 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 10 (5) ◽

pp. 590-604 ◽

Cited By ~ 554

Author(s):

Carles Escera ◽

Kimmo Alho ◽

István Winkler ◽

Risto Näätänen

Keyword(s):

Mismatch Negativity ◽

Stimulus Change ◽

Visual Stimuli ◽

Neural Mechanisms ◽

Involuntary Attention ◽

Behavioral Measures ◽

Acoustic Environment ◽

Hit Rate ◽

Performance Accuracy ◽

And Performance

Behavioral and event-related brain potential (ERP) measures were used to elucidate the neural mechanisms of involuntary engagement of attention by novelty and change in the acoustic environment. The behavioral measures consisted of the reaction time (RT) and performance accuracy (hit rate) in a forced-choice visual RT task where subjects were to discriminate between odd and even numbers. Each visual stimulus was preceded by an irrelevant auditory stimulus, which was randomly either a “standard” tone (80%), a slightly, higher “deviant” tone (10%), or a natural, “novel” sound (10%). Novel sounds prolonged the RT to successive visual stimuli by 17 msec as compared with the RT to visual stimuli that followed standard tones. Deviant tones, in turn, decreased the hit rate but did not significantly affect the RT. In the ERPs to deviant tones, the mismatch negativity (MMN), peaking at 150 msec, and a second negativity, peaking at 400 msec, could be observed. Novel sounds elicited an enhanced N1, with a probable overlap by the MMN, and a large positive P3a response with two different subcomponents: an early centrally dominant P3a, peaking at 230 msec, and a late P3a, peaking at 315 msec with a right-frontal scalp maximum. The present results suggest the involvement of two different neural mechanisms in triggering involuntary attention to acoustic novelty and change: a transient-detector mechanism activated by novel sounds and reflected in the N1 and a stimulus-change detector mechanism activated by deviant tones and novel sounds and reflected in the MMN. The observed differential distracting effects by slightly deviant tones and widely deviant novel sounds support the notion of two separate mechanisms of involuntary attention.

Download Full-text

Neural mechanisms of mismatch negativity dysfunction in schizophrenia

Molecular Psychiatry ◽

10.1038/mp.2017.3 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 22 (11) ◽

pp. 1585-1593 ◽

Cited By ~ 35

Author(s):

M Lee ◽

P Sehatpour ◽

M J Hoptman ◽

P Lakatos ◽

E C Dias ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mismatch Negativity ◽

Neural Mechanisms

Download Full-text

Neural Correlates of Cross-modally Induced Changes in Tactile Awareness

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn.2008.21177 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 21 (12) ◽

pp. 2445-2461 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Kirsten Hötting ◽

Claudia K. Friedrich ◽

Brigitte Röder

Keyword(s):

Mismatch Negativity ◽

Tactile Stimulus ◽

Neural Correlates ◽

Neural Mechanisms ◽

Brain Potentials ◽

Tactile Stimuli ◽

Processing Step ◽

Physically Identical ◽

Induced Changes ◽

The Brain

When a single tactile stimulus is presented together with two tones, participants often report perceiving two touches. It is a matter of debate whether this cross-modal effect of audition on touch reflects the interplay between modalities at early perceptual or at later processing stages, and which brain processes determine what in the end is consciously perceived. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded while rare single tactile stimuli accompanied by two tones (1T2A) were presented among frequent tactile double stimuli accompanied by two tones (2T2A). Although participants were instructed to ignore the tones and to respond to single tactile stimuli only, they often failed to respond to 1T2A stimuli (“illusory double touches,” 1T2A(i)). ERPs to “illusory double touches” versus “real double touches” (2T2A) differed 50 msec after the (missing) second touch. This suggests that at an early sensory stage, illusory and real touches are processed differently. On the other hand, although similar stimuli elicited a tactile mismatch negativity (MMN) between 100 and 200 msec in a unisensory tactile experiment, no MMN was observed for the 1T2A(i) stimuli in the multisensory experiment. “Tactile awareness” was associated with a negativity at 250 msec, which was enhanced in response to correctly identified deviants as compared to physically identical deviants that elicited an illusion. Thus, auditory stimuli seem to alter neural mechanisms associated with automatic tactile deviant detection. The present findings contribute to the debate of which processing step in the brain determines what is consciously perceived.

Download Full-text

John Ludbrook APPS Symposium Neural Mechanisms In The Cardiovascular Responses To Acute Central Hypovolaemia

Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology and Physiology ◽

10.1046/j.1440-1681.2001.3473.x ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 28 (5-6) ◽

pp. 479-487

Author(s):

Roger G Evans ◽

Sabatino Ventura ◽

Roger Al Dampney ◽

John Ludbrook

Keyword(s):

Cardiovascular Responses ◽

Neural Mechanisms ◽

Central Hypovolaemia

Download Full-text

Musical Experience Shapes Neural Processing

Zeitschrift für Neuropsychologie ◽

10.1024/1016-264x/a000295 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 31 (2) ◽

pp. 81-86

Author(s):

Wido Nager ◽

Tilla Franke ◽

Tobias Wagner-Altendorf ◽

Eckart Altenmüller ◽

Thomas F. Münte

Keyword(s):

Mismatch Negativity ◽

Pure Tone ◽

Musical Instrument ◽

Active Listening ◽

Musical Experience ◽

Neural Processing ◽

Neural Adaptations

Abstract. Playing a musical instrument professionally has been shown to lead to structural and functional neural adaptations, making musicians valuable subjects for neuroplasticity research. Here, we follow the hypothesis that specific musical demands further shape neural processing. To test this assumption, we subjected groups of professional drummers, professional woodwind players, and nonmusicians to pure tone sequences and drum sequences in which infrequent anticipations of tones or drum beats had been inserted. Passively listening to these sequences elicited a mismatch negativity to the temporally deviant stimuli which was greater in the musicians for tone series and particularly large for drummers for drum sequences. In active listening conditions drummers more accurately and more quickly detected temporally deviant stimuli.

Download Full-text

Effects of Experimentally Induced Pain on Mismatch Negativity

Journal of Psychophysiology ◽

10.1027/0269-8803.20.1.21 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 20 (1) ◽

pp. 21-31 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Bruce D. Dick ◽

John F. Connolly ◽

Michael E. Houlihan ◽

Patrick J. McGrath ◽

G. Allen Finley ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Processing ◽

Mismatch Negativity ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Disruptive Effect ◽

Ischemic Pain ◽

Active Attention ◽

Early Processing ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Healthy Participants ◽

Experimentally Induced

Abstract: Previous research has found that pain can exert a disruptive effect on cognitive processing. This experiment was conducted to extend previous research with participants with chronic pain. This report examines pain's effects on early processing of auditory stimulus differences using the Mismatch Negativity (MMN) in healthy participants while they experienced experimentally induced pain. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded using target and standard tones whose pitch differences were easy- or difficult-to-detect in conditions where participants attended to (active attention) or ignored (passive attention) the stimuli. Both attention manipulations were conducted in no pain and pain conditions. Experimentally induced ischemic pain did not disrupt the MMN. However, MMN amplitudes were larger to difficult-to-detect deviant tones during painful stimulation when they were attended than when they were ignored. Also, MMN amplitudes were larger to the difficult- than to the easy-to-detect tones in the active attention condition regardless of pain condition. It appears that rather than exerting a disruptive effect, the presence of experimentally induced pain enhanced early processing of small stimulus differences in these healthy participants.

Download Full-text

Human Event-Related Potentials to Higher-Order Acoustic Spatial Changes

Journal of Psychophysiology ◽

10.1027//0269-8803.16.2.114 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 16 (2) ◽

pp. 114-118 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Timo Ruusuvirta ◽

Heikki Hämäläinen

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Mismatch Negativity ◽

Spatial Information ◽

Free Field ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Negative Polarity ◽

Positive Polarity ◽

Spatial Changes ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Human Event

Abstract Human event-related potentials (ERPs) to a tone continuously alternating between its two spatial loci of origin (middle-standards, left-standards), to repetitions of left-standards (oddball-deviants), and to the tones originally representing these repetitions presented alone (alone-deviants) were recorded in free-field conditions. During the recordings (Fz, Cz, Pz, M1, and M2 referenced to nose), the subjects watched a silent movie. Oddball-deviants elicited a spatially diffuse two-peaked deflection of positive polarity. It differed from a deflection elicited by left-standards and commenced earlier than a prominent deflection of negative polarity (N1) elicited by alone-deviants. The results are discussed in the context of the mismatch negativity (MMN) and previous findings of dissociation between spatial and non-spatial information in auditory working memory.

Download Full-text

The Involuntary Capture of Attention by Sound

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1027/1618-3169/a000009 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 57 (1) ◽

pp. 68-76 ◽

Cited By ~ 48

Author(s):

Fabrice B. R. Parmentier ◽

Pilar Andrés

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Mismatch Negativity ◽

Visual Task ◽

The Novel ◽

Auditory Oddball ◽

Current Trial ◽

Electrophysiological Responses ◽

Electrophysiological Studies ◽

The Cross ◽

Task Sets

The presentation of auditory oddball stimuli (novels) among otherwise repeated sounds (standards) triggers a well-identified chain of electrophysiological responses: The detection of acoustic change (mismatch negativity), the involuntary orientation of attention to (P3a) and its reorientation from the novel. Behaviorally, novels reduce performance in an unrelated visual task (novelty distraction). Past studies of the cross-modal capture of attention by acoustic novelty have typically discarded from their analysis the data from the standard trials immediately following a novel, despite some evidence in mono-modal oddball tasks of distraction extending beyond the presentation of deviants/novels (postnovelty distraction). The present study measured novelty and postnovelty distraction and examined the hypothesis that both types of distraction may be underpinned by common frontally-related processes by comparing young and older adults. Our data establish that novels delayed responses not only on the current trial and but also on the subsequent standard trial. Both of these effects increased with age. We argue that both types of distraction relate to the reconfiguration of task-sets and discuss this contention in relation to recent electrophysiological studies.

Download Full-text