Automatic sensory information processing abnormalities across the illness course of schizophrenia

BackgroundDeficits in automatic sensory discrimination, as indexed by a reduction in the mismatch negativity (MMN) and P3a event-related potential amplitudes, are well documented in chronic schizophrenia. However, MMN and P3a have not been sufficiently studied early in the course of psychotic illness. The present study aimed to investigate MMN, P3a and reorienting negativity (RON) across the course of schizophrenia.MethodMMN, P3a, and RON were assessed in 118 subjects across four groups: (1) individuals at risk for psychosis (n=26); (2) recent-onset patients (n=31); (3) chronic patients (n=33); and (4) normal controls (n=28) using a duration-deviant auditory oddball paradigm.ResultsFrontocentral deficits in MMN and P3a were present in all patient groups. The at-risk group's MMN and P3a amplitudes were intermediate to those of the control and recent-onset groups. The recent-onset and chronic patients, but not the at-risk subjects, showed significant RON amplitude reductions, relative to the control group. Associations between MMN, P3a, RON and psychosocial functioning were present in the chronic patients. In the at-risk subjects, P3a and RON deficits were significantly associated with higher levels of negative symptoms.ConclusionsAbnormalities in the automatic processes of sensory discrimination, orienting and reorienting of attention are evident in the early phases of schizophrenia and raise the possibility of progressive worsening across stages of the illness. The finding that MMN and P3a, but not RON, were reduced before psychosis onset supports the continued examination of these components as potential early biomarkers of schizophrenia.

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Turning to the negative: attention allocation to emotional faces in adolescents with dysregulation profile—an event-related potential study

Journal of Neural Transmission ◽

10.1007/s00702-021-02319-x ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Franziska Martin ◽

Marlies Pinnow ◽

Stephan Getzmann ◽

Stefan Hans ◽

Martin Holtmann ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Psychosocial Functioning ◽

Child Behavior Checklist ◽

Negative Impact ◽

Psychiatric Patients ◽

Event Related Potential ◽

Control Group ◽

Dysregulation Profile ◽

Underlying Mechanisms ◽

Task Irrelevant ◽

Emotional Face

AbstractPatients with irritability, temper outbursts, hyperactivity and mood swings often meet the dysregulation profile (DP) of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) or the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), which have been investigated over the past few decades. While the DP has emerged as a transdiagnostic marker with a negative impact on therapeutic outcome and psychosocial functioning, little is known about its underlying mechanisms such as attention and emotion regulation processes. In this study, we tested whether adolescent psychiatric patients (n = 27) with the SDQ-DP show impaired emotional face processing for task-irrelevant stimuli compared to psychiatric patients without the SDQ-DP (n = 30) and non-clinical adolescents (n = 21). Facial processing was tested with event-related potential (ERP) measures known to be modulated by attention (i.e., P1, N1, N170, P2, and Nc) during a modified Attention Network Task, to which task-irrelevant emotional stimuli (sad, fearful, and neutral faces) were added prior to the actual trial. The results reveal group differences in the orienting and in the conflicting network. Patients with DP showed a less efficient orienting network and the clinical control group showed a less efficient conflicting network. Moreover, patients with the dysregulation profile had a shorter N1/N170 latency than did the two control groups, suggesting that dysregulation in adolescents is associated with a faster but less arousing encoding of (task-irrelevant) emotional information and less top-down control.

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Event-related potential correlates of depression, insight and negative symptoms in males with recent-onset psychosis

Clinical Neurophysiology ◽

10.1016/j.clinph.2006.04.017 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 117 (8) ◽

pp. 1715-1727 ◽

Cited By ~ 20

Author(s):

Alex Sumich ◽

Anthony Harris ◽

Gary Flynn ◽

Thomas Whitford ◽

Nigel Tunstall ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Negative Symptoms ◽

Event Related Potential ◽

Recent Onset

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Visual Attention Study in Youth With Spastic Cerebral Palsy Using the Event-Related Potential Method

Journal of Child Neurology ◽

10.1177/0883073811409406 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 26 (12) ◽

pp. 1525-1528 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Elina Hakkarainen ◽

Silja Pirilä ◽

Jukka Kaartinen ◽

Kai Eriksson ◽

Jaap J. van der Meere

Keyword(s):

Cerebral Palsy ◽

Visual Attention ◽

High Probability ◽

Potential Method ◽

Event Related Potential ◽

Oddball Paradigm ◽

Spastic Cerebral Palsy ◽

Control Group ◽

Brain Potential ◽

Peer Control

Youth with mild spastic cerebral palsy (n = 14) and a peer control group were compared on an oddball paradigm. Here, visual stimuli were presented with low and high probability and participants were instructed to count in silence the number of rare stimuli. The infrequent stimulus typically elicits an enhanced frontal central N2 and a centroparietal P300 event-related brain potential, reflecting orientation and evaluation of stimulus novelty. No differences in latency and amplitude of the N2–P300 complex were found between the 2 groups, indicating that some fundamental attention processes are intact in youth with mild spastic cerebral palsy.

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Reduced Hippocampal Subfield Volume in Schizophrenia and Clinical High-Risk State for Psychosis

Frontiers in Psychiatry ◽

10.3389/fpsyt.2021.642048 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Daiki Sasabayashi ◽

Ryo Yoshimura ◽

Tsutomu Takahashi ◽

Yoichiro Takayanagi ◽

Shimako Nishiyama ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Molecular Layer ◽

Control Group ◽

Chronic Patients ◽

Recent Onset ◽

Schizophrenia Group ◽

Cornu Ammonis ◽

Healthy Control ◽

Magnetic Resonance Imaging Mri ◽

And Function

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies in schizophrenia demonstrated volume reduction in hippocampal subfields divided on the basis of specific cytoarchitecture and function. However, it remains unclear whether this abnormality exists prior to the onset of psychosis and differs across illness stages. MRI (3 T) scans were obtained from 77 patients with schizophrenia, including 24 recent-onset and 40 chronic patients, 51 individuals with an at-risk mental state (ARMS) (of whom 5 subsequently developed psychosis within the follow-up period), and 87 healthy controls. Using FreeSurfer software, hippocampal subfield volumes were measured and compared across the groups. Both schizophrenia and ARMS groups exhibited significantly smaller volumes for the bilateral Cornu Ammonis 1 area, left hippocampal tail, and right molecular layer of the hippocampus than the healthy control group. Within the schizophrenia group, chronic patients exhibited a significantly smaller volume for the left hippocampal tail than recent-onset patients. The left hippocampal tail volume was positively correlated with onset age, and negatively correlated with duration of psychosis and duration of medication in the schizophrenia group. Reduced hippocampal subfield volumes observed in both schizophrenia and ARMS groups may represent a common biotype associated with psychosis vulnerability. Volumetric changes of the left hippocampal tail may also suggest ongoing atrophy after the onset of schizophrenia.

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Schizophrenia with Good and Poor Outcome II: Cerebral Ventricular Size and its Clinical Significance

The British Journal of Psychiatry ◽

10.1192/bjp.146.3.239 ◽

1985 ◽

Vol 146 (3) ◽

pp. 239-246 ◽

Cited By ~ 103

Author(s):

A. O. Williams ◽

M. A. Reveley ◽

T. Kolakowska ◽

M. Ardern ◽

B. M. Mandelbrote

Keyword(s):

Affective Disorder ◽

Clinical Features ◽

Negative Symptoms ◽

Cognitive Deficit ◽

Chronic Schizophrenia ◽

Control Group ◽

Ventricular Size ◽

Chronic Patients ◽

Brain Scans ◽

Duration Of Illness

SummaryComputed tomography brain scans were carried out on 40 patients with schizophrenia or schizo-affective disorder of 2–20 years duration. Ventricular-brain ratio (VBR) was significantly greater than that of the control group. In six patients the VBR exceeded the control mean + 2 s.d. Among the 13 whose VBR was more than 1 s.d. above the control mean, none had schizo-affective disorder, all but one had chronic illness, and patients with negative symptoms and those with premorbid schizoid traits were over-represented. VBR was unrelated to medical history, age, duration of illness, or neuroleptic treatment. It was not associated with neurological ‘soft’ signs or cognitive deficit. Among chronic patients, clinical features showed no association with ventricular size. The findings suggest that large ventricles may be related to a sub-type of chronic schizophrenia rather than to its particular clinical features.

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Preattentive Sensory Processing as Indexed by the MMN and P3a Brain Responses is Associated with Cognitive and Psychosocial Functioning in Healthy Adults

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn.2007.19.10.1624 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 19 (10) ◽

pp. 1624-1632 ◽

Cited By ~ 117

Author(s):

Gregory A. Light ◽

Neal R. Swerdlow ◽

David L. Braff

Keyword(s):

Information Processing ◽

Cognitive Abilities ◽

Psychosocial Functioning ◽

Memory Performance ◽

Sensory Information ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Higher Order ◽

Event Related Potential ◽

Cognitive Operations ◽

Related Potentials

Understanding the basic neural processes that underlie complex higher order cognitive operations and psychosocial functioning is a fundamental goal of cognitive neuroscience. Event-related potentials allow investigators to probe the earliest stages of information processing. Mismatch negativity (MMN) and P3a are auditory event-related potential components that reflect automatic sensory discrimination. The aim of the present study was to determine if MMN and P3a are associated with higher order cognitive operations and psychosocial functioning in clinically normal healthy subjects. Twenty adults were assessed using standardized clinical, cognitive, and psychosocial functional instruments. All individuals were within the normal range on cognitive tests and functional ratings. Participants were also tested on a duration-deviant MMN/P3a paradigm (50-msec standard tones, p = .90; 100-msec deviant tones, p = .10; stimulus onset asynchrony [SOA] = 505 msec). Across fronto-central electrode regions, significant correlations were observed between psychosocial functioning and MMN (r = −.62, p < .01) and P3a (r = .63, p < .01) amplitudes. P3a amplitude was also highly associated with immediate and delayed recall of verbal information with robust correlations widely distributed across fronto-central recording areas (e.g., r = .72, p < .001). The latency of the P3a response was significantly associated with both working memory performance (r = −.53, p < .05) and functional ratings (r = −.48, p < .05). Neurophysiological measures of relatively automatic auditory sensory information processing are associated with higher order cognitive abilities and psychosocial functioning in normal subjects. Efficiency at elementary levels of information processing may underlie the successful encoding, retrieval, and discrimination of task-relevant information, which, in turn, facilitates the iterative and responsive processing necessary for adaptive cognitive and social functioning.

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Psychological Intervention for Adolescents with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis: For Whom and When?

The Journal of Rheumatology ◽

10.3899/jrheum.120741 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 40 (4) ◽

pp. 528-534 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Coralie Elisabeth Fuchs ◽

Stefan Matthijs Van Geelen ◽

Hubertus Johannes Matthias Hermans ◽

Elise Machteld Van De Putte ◽

Rolf Van Geel ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis ◽

Psychosocial Functioning ◽

Psychological Intervention ◽

Health Assessment ◽

Control Group ◽

Childhood Health ◽

Recent Onset ◽

Before And After ◽

Related Quality ◽

Health Related

Objective.To study which adolescents with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) benefit from psychological intervention, and what is the best moment for it.Methods.In 3 months, 28 adolescents with JIA and 14 healthy adolescents as a control group received psychological intervention with the Self-confrontation Method (SCM), which combines the personal narrative with its affective structure. The adolescents with JIA were split into groups with low health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and high HRQOL. The Child Health Questionnaire, Checklist Individual Strength, and Childhood Health Assessment Questionnaire were used to measure fatigue and physical and psychosocial functioning at baseline, and at 3 months and 9 months after baseline.Results.Adolescents with JIA and low HRQOL at baseline reported less fatigue and better HRQOL after psychological intervention. These changes could not be explained by changes in disease activity. Low HRQOL at baseline was associated with a more recent onset of JIA, higher levels of pain, more severe physical disability, and higher levels of fatigue.Conclusion.Two-thirds of adolescents with JIA function well before and after psychological intervention. One-third of adolescents with JIA reporting low HRQOL at baseline benefit from guided self-reflections and should be the focus of psychological intervention. The most effective moment for this psychological intervention is when the adolescent reports difficulties in HRQOL.

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Auditory Cognitive Function Assessment during Pregnancy: An Event-Related Potential and Neuropsychological Study

Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science ◽

10.3329/bjms.v20i3.52803 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 20 (3) ◽

pp. 608-617

Author(s):

Tahamina Begum ◽

Faruque Reza

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Function ◽

Medical Science ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Positive Influence ◽

Event Related Potential ◽

Oddball Paradigm ◽

Control Group ◽

Hormonal Changes ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Function Assessment

Objectives: We investigated the auditory cognitive and behavioral functions during 2nd and 3rd trimesters of pregnancy using event-related potentials (ERPs) and different neuropsychology tests, respectively. Methods: The ERPs were studied by using a 128-sensor net, and PAS/COWA, WCST, ZCT, RAVLTIM/RAVLTDR/RAVLTTS, and BDI were tested for neuropsychology assessment. Total 39 subjects were recruited for control group (G1, n=15, non-pregnant), 2nd trimester group (G2, n=12, 13-26 weeks gestation), and 3rd trimester group (G3, n=12, 26- 40 weeks gestation). Auditory oddball paradigm was used during ERP study. Subjects silently counted only the target stimuli with attention by ignoring standard stimuli. Value of the mean differences of the target and standard stimuli were measured across groups in 10-20 electrode systems. Results: The P50, N100, and P300 ERP components were analyzed. The G3 (at F7 and C3) and G2 (at T4) groups evoked the highest significant amplitudes in P50, and G3 (at Cz and Pz) and G1 (at F8 and T4) evoked the highest significant amplitudes of N100 with significantly prolonged latencies at Cz and O1 (in G1) and F8 (in G2). However, significantly higher amplitudes of P300 were found at Fz (in G3) and FP1 (G2) (G2>G3). On the other hand, neuropsychology tests revealed that G2 possessed the highest significant score in WCST and G1 in ZCT. The G3 performed poorly in all tests. Conclusion: We concluded that pregnant groups performed better in auditory (attention/memory) and executive function assessment. Moreover, the 2nd trimester group has better auditory cognitive function compared to the 3rd trimester group due to the effect of hormonal changes during pregnancy, which might be a positive influence during the pregnancy period. Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science Vol.20(3) 2021 p.608-617

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Deficits in Processing of Lexical Tones in Mandarin-Speaking Children With Developmental Language Disorder: Electrophysiological Evidence

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2021_jslhr-19-00392 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-13

Author(s):

Ying-Ying Cheng ◽

Hsin-Chi Wu ◽

Hsin-Yi Shih ◽

Pei-Wen Yeh ◽

Huei-Ling Yen ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mismatch Negativity ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Event Related Potential ◽

Oddball Paradigm ◽

Control Group ◽

Lexical Tone ◽

Data Set ◽

Lexical Tones ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Neural Marker

Purpose This study explored the neural marker indexing deficits in discriminating lexical tone changes in Mandarin-speaking children with developmental language disorders (DLDs) using mismatch negativity, an event-related potential component for auditory change detection. Mandarin has four lexical tones characterized by a high-level tone (T1), high-rising tone (T2), low-dipping tone (T3), and high-falling tone (T4), in which the T2/T3 contrast is acoustically less discriminable in developmental groups. Therefore, this study further examined how deficits in children with DLD would vary with tonal contrasts' acoustic saliency. Method Event-related potentials were measured using the multideviant oddball paradigm described by Lee et al. (2012), who used Mandarin syllables [i] in T3 as the standard sound (80%), T1 as the large deviant (10%), and T2 as the small deviant (10%). Twelve children with DLD aged between 4 and 6 years participated in this study, and 12 age-matched children with typical development were selected from the data set of Lee et al. (2012) as the controls. Results The T1/T3 change elicited adultlike mismatch negativity in both the DLD and control groups, while no group difference was revealed. The T2/T3 change elicited a robust positive mismatch response (P-MMR) in children with DLD, while the P-MMR was less significant in the control group. The group comparisons revealed a larger P-MMR in children with DLD than in the control group. Furthermore, children with lower scores in language assessments tend to reveal larger P-MMRs. Conclusions This study demonstrated that deficits in children with DLD in discriminating subtle lexical tone changes reflect greater positivity of P-MMR to T2/T3 change. This implies that MMR to T2/T3 may serve as a neural marker for evaluating language delay in preschoolers.

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