Impairment in activation of a frontal attention-switch mechanism in schizophrenic patients

• Published in: Biological psychology Vol. 62; no. 1; pp. 49 - 63
• Main Authors: Sato, Yasuharu, Yabe, Hirooki, Todd, Juanita, Michie, Patricia, Shinozaki, Naoko, Sutoh, Takeyuki, Hiruma, Tomiharu, Nashida, Tadayoshi, Matsuoka, Takashi, Kaneko, Sunao
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Shannon Elsevier B.V 2003; Elsevier Science
• Subjects: Activity levels. Psychomotricity; Adult; Adult and adolescent clinical studies; Attention; Auditory event-related potentials; Auditory Perception; Biological and medical sciences; Development of a memory trace; Female; Frontal Lobe - physiology; Frontal MMN generator; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Male; Medical sciences; Memory; Mental Processes; Middle Aged; Mismatch negativity; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Psychoses; Schizophrenia; Schizophrenia - physiopathology; Schizophrenic patients; Temporal Lobe - physiology; Temporal MMN generator; Vigilance. Attention. Sleep; Temporal MMN generator; Mismatch negativity; Schizophrenic patients; Auditory event-related potentials; Development of a memory trace; Frontal MMN generator; Psychosis; Human; Vigilance; Acoustic stimulus; Healthy subject; Familiarity strangeness; Attention; Information processing; Schizophrenia; Cognition; Comparative study
• ISSN: 0301-0511; 1873-6246
• DOI: 10.1016/S0301-0511(02)00113-8

The present study addresses the difference in activities of frontal and temporal mismatch negativity (MMN) generators between healthy controls and schizophrenic patients. Auditory MMNs were measured from 13 medicated schizophrenic patients in a post-acute phase and 12 healthy controls. The probabilities of the standard stimuli were, in different experimental blocks, 95, 90, 80 or 70%. The mean amplitude of the MMN recorded at Fz was significantly smaller in schizophrenic patients than healthy controls only in the conditions with high probability of standard stimuli, while that recorded at mastoid sites was not different in any condition. The present study suggested that schizophrenic patients might fail to cause involuntary attention switch to stimulus change reflected in the lowered MMN amplitude recorded at Fz; whereas the patients might index an adequate detection of the deviant event reflected by the similar amplitude of MMN recorded at mastoid sites.