Auditory recovery cycle dysfunction in schizophrenia: A study using event-related potentials

• Published in: Psychiatry research Vol. 136; no. 1; pp. 17 - 25
• Main Authors: Clunas, Nathan J., Ward, Philip B.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Shannon Elsevier Ireland Ltd 15.07.2005; Elsevier
• Subjects: Adult; Adult and adolescent clinical studies; Attention; Auditory Perceptual Disorders - diagnosis; Auditory Perceptual Disorders - etiology; Auditory Perceptual Disorders - physiopathology; Biological and medical sciences; Brain - physiopathology; Electrooculography; Evoked potentials; Evoked Potentials, Auditory - physiology; Female; Functional Laterality - physiology; Humans; Inhibition; Male; Medical sciences; Middle Aged; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Psychoses; Recovery of Function; Schizophrenia; Schizophrenia - complications; Schizophrenia - physiopathology; Severity of Illness Index; N1; Inhibition; Evoked potentials; Attention; Human; Central nervous system; Electrophysiology; Schizophrenia; Auditory disorder; Cognition; Encephalon; Psychosis; Electrodiagnosis; Hearing; ENT disease; Perception; Event evoked potential
• ISSN: 0165-1781; 1872-7123
• DOI: 10.1016/j.psychres.2005.05.009

Previous event-related potential (ERP) studies reported evidence of impaired auditory information processing in patients with schizophrenia. The recovery cycle of the auditory N1 ERP component was measured in 17 patients with schizophrenia and 17 age- and sex-matched healthy volunteers. Subjects performed a visual distraction task while listening to 80-dB SPL, 1000-Hz tone pairs, presented with intra-pair intervals of 1, 3, 5 or 7 s, with inter-pair intervals of 9–13 s. Patients with schizophrenia had significantly reduced N1 amplitudes for S1 stimuli compared with healthy volunteers. For N1 amplitudes elicited by S2 stimuli, there was a significant group effect whilst the main effect of intra-pair interval was not significant. These results provide additional evidence of inhibitory auditory processing deficits in schizophrenia.