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Spectral decomposition of P50 suppression in schizophrenia during concurrent visual processing
Schizophrenia Research, 08/08/2012
Moran ZD et al. – Schizophrenia patients showed intact gating but overall increased power in the gamma range, consistent with a model of NMDA receptor dysfunction in the disorder. These results are in line with a model of schizophrenia in which impairments in neural synchrony are related to sensory demands and the processing of multimodal information.
- Reduced suppression of the auditory P50 event-related potential has long been associated with schizophrenia, but the mechanisms associated with the generation and suppression of the P50 are not well understood.
- Recent investigations have used spectral decomposition of the electroencephalograph (EEG) signal to gain additional insight into the ongoing electrophysiological activity that may be reflected by the P50 suppression deficit.
- The present investigation extended this line of study by examining how both a traditional measure of sensory gating and the ongoing EEG from which it is extracted might be modified by the presence of concurrent visual stimulation — perhaps better characterizing gating deficits as they occur in a real-world, complex sensory environment.
- The EEG was obtained from 18 patients with schizophrenia and 17 healthy control subjects during the P50 suppression paradigm and while identical auditory paired-stimuli were presented concurrently with affectively neutral pictures.
- Consistent with prior research, schizophrenia patients differed from healthy subjects in gating of power in the theta range; theta activity also was modulated by visual stimulation.
