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. 2018 Jan:191:5-9.
doi: 10.1016/j.schres.2017.05.020. Epub 2017 Sep 15.

Mismatch negativity impairment is associated with deficits in identifying real-world environmental sounds in schizophrenia

Yash B Joshi  1 , Barbara Breitenstein  2 , Melissa Tarasenko  3 , Michael L Thomas  1 , Wei-Li Chang  4 , Joyce Sprock  1 , Richard F Sharp  1 , Gregory A Light  5
Affiliations

Mismatch negativity impairment is associated with deficits in identifying real-world environmental sounds in schizophrenia

Yash B Joshi et al. Schizophr Res. 2018 Jan.

Abstract

Background: Patients with schizophrenia (SZ) have impairments in processing auditory information that have been linked to deficits in cognitive and psychosocial functioning. Dysfunction in auditory sensory processing in SZ has been indexed by mismatch negativity (MMN), an event-related potential evoked by a rare, deviant stimulus embedded within a sequence of identical standard stimuli. Although MMN deficits in SZ have been studied extensively, relatively little is known about how these deficits relate to accurately identifying real-world, ecologically-salient sounds.

Methods: MMN was assessed in SZ patients (n=21) and non-psychiatric comparison subjects (NCS; n=16). Participants were also assessed in their ability to identify common environmental sounds using a subset of 80 sound clips from the International Affective Digitized Sounds 2nd Ed collection.

Results: SZ patients made significantly more errors in environmental sound identification (p<0.001, d=0.86) and showed significantly reduced MMN amplitude deficits in MMN compared to NCS (p<0.01, d=0.97). In SZ patients, MMN deficits were associated with significantly greater environmental sound identification errors (r=0.61, p<0.01).

Conclusions: Impairments in early auditory information processing in schizophrenia account for significant proportions of variance in the ability to identify real-world, functionally relevant environmental sounds. This study supports the view that interventions targeting deficits in low-level auditory sensory processing may also impact more complex cognitive brain processes relevant to psychosocial disability.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: Dr. Light has served as a consultant for Astellas, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Heptares, Merck, NeuroSig, and Takeda unrelated to this project. The remaining authors report no financial relationships with commercial interests. None of the authors have relevant financial interests in the manuscript. Funding sources had no role in the conduct of this research.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Grand average mismatch negativity (MMN) waveform for patients with schizophrenia (SZ, in red) and non-psychiatric comparison subjects (NSC, in black) at electrode site Fz.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Ratings ± standard deviation (SD) of arousal and valence of negative valence/high arousal (AN), positive valence/high arousal (AP), neutral (N), and positive valence/low arousal (UP) stimuli in both non-psychiatric comparison (NCS) subjects and schizophrenia patients (SZ). Ratings were collected on all stimuli used in this study, prior to assessment of sound identification.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Correlation of mismatch negativity (MMN) with sound identification errors in patients with schizophrenia (SZ) and non-psychiatric comparison subjects (NCS). MMN deficits at Fz in SZ patients were correlated with sound identification, but no correlation between MMN was found in sound identification accuracy in NCS. Larger amplitude MMN was associated with greater sound identification accuracy (r=0.61, p<0.01).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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