Schizophrenia is characterized by dysfunctions in neural circuits that can be investigated with electrophysiological methods, such as EEG and MEG. In the present human study, we examined event-related fields (ERFs), in a sample of medication-naive, first-episode schizophrenia (FE-ScZ) patients (n ϭ 14) and healthy control participants (n ϭ 17) during perception of Mooney faces to investigate the integrity of neuromagnetic responses and their experience-dependent modification. ERF responses were analyzed for M100, M170, and M250 components at the sensor and source levels. In addition, we analyzed peak latency and adaptation effects due to stimulus repetition. FE-ScZ patients were characterized by significantly impaired sensory processing, as indicated by a reduced discrimination index (AЈ). At the sensor level, M100 and M170 responses in FE-ScZ were within the normal range, whereas the M250 response was impaired. However, source localization revealed widespread elevated activity for M100 and M170 in FE-ScZ and delayed peak latencies for the M100 and M250 responses. In addition, M170 source activity in FE-ScZ was not modulated by stimulus repetitions. The present findings suggest that neural circuits in FE-ScZ may be characterized by a disturbed balance between excitation and inhibition that could lead to a failure to gate information flow and abnormal spreading of activity, which is compatible with dysfunctional glutamatergic neurotransmission.

Aging is accompanied by unisensory decline. To compensate for this, two complementary strategies are potentially relied upon increasingly: first, older adults integrate more information from different sensory organs. Second, according to the predictive coding (PC) model, we form “templates” (internal models or “priors”) of the environment through our experiences. It is through increased life experience that older adults may rely more on these templates compared to younger adults. Multisensory integration and predictive coding would be effective strategies for the perception of near-threshold stimuli, which may however come at the cost of integrating irrelevant information. Both strategies can be studied in multisensory illusions because these require the integration of different sensory information, as well as an internal model of the world that can take precedence over sensory input. Here, we elicited a classic multisensory illusion, the sound-induced flash illusion, in younger (mean: 27 years, N = 25) and older (mean: 67 years, N = 28) adult participants while recording the magnetoencephalogram. Older adults perceived more illusions than younger adults. Older adults had increased pre-stimulus beta-band activity compared to younger adults as predicted by microcircuit theories of predictive coding, which suggest priors and predictions are linked to beta-band activity. Transfer entropy analysis and dynamic causal modeling of pre-stimulus magnetoencephalography data revealed a stronger illusion-related modulation of cross-modal connectivity from auditory to visual cortices in older compared to younger adults. We interpret this as the neural correlate of increased reliance on a cross-modal predictive template in older adults leading to the illusory percept.

Aging is accompanied by unisensory decline; but to compensate for this, two complementary strategies are potentially relied upon increasingly: first, older adults integrate more information from different sensory organs. Second, according to predictive coding (PC) we form 'templates' (internal models or 'priors') of the environment through our experiences. It is through increased life experience that older adults may rely more on these templates compared to younger adults.Multisensory integration and predictive coding would be effective strategies for the perception of near-threshold stimuli, but they come at the cost of integrating irrelevant information. Their role can be studied in multisensory illusions because these require the integration of different sensory information, as well as an internal model of the world that can take precedence over sensory input.Here, we elicited a classic multisensory illusion, the sound-induced flash illusion, in younger (mean: 27 yrs) and older (mean: 67 yrs) adult participants while recording the magnetoencephalogram.Older adults perceived more illusions than younger adults. Older adults had increased pre-stimulus beta(β)-band activity compared to younger adults as predicted by microcircuit theories of predictive coding, which suggest priors and predictions are linked to β-band activity. In line with our hypothesis, transfer entropy analysis and dynamic causal models of pre-stimulus MEG data revealed a stronger illusion-related modulation of cross-modal connectivity from auditory to visual cortices in older compared to younger adults. We interpret this as the neural correlate of increased reliance on a cross-modal predictive template in older adults that is leading to the illusory percept.