Abnormal Habituation of the Auditory Event-Related Potential P2 Component in Patients With Schizophrenia

Abstract

Auditory event-related potentials (ERP) may serve as diagnostic tools for schizophrenia and inform on the susceptibility for this condition. Particularly, the examination of N1 and P2 components of the auditory ERP may shed light on the impairments of information processing streams in schizophrenia. However, the habituation properties (i.e., decreasing amplitude with the repeated presentation of an auditory stimulus) of these components remain poorly studied compared to other auditory ERPs. Therefore, the current study used a roving paradigm to assess the modulation and habituation of N1 and P2 to simple (pure tones) and complex sounds (human voices and bird songs) in 26 first-episode patients with schizophrenia and 27 healthy participants. To explore the habituation properties of these ERPs, we measured the decrease in amplitude over a train of seven repetitions of the same stimulus (either bird songs or human voices). We observed that, for human voices, N1 and P2 amplitudes decreased linearly from stimulus 1–7, in both groups. Regarding bird songs, only the P2 component showed a decreased amplitude with stimulus presentation, exclusively in the control group. This suggests that patients did not show a fading of neural responses to repeated bird songs, reflecting abnormal habituation to this stimulus. This could reflect the inability to inhibit irrelevant or redundant information at later stages of auditory processing. In turn schizophrenia patients appear to have a preserved auditory processing of human voices.

Generalization of sustained neurophysiological effects of short‐term auditory 13‐Hz stimulation to neighbouring frequency representation in humans

“…While our study shows the depression within the N1 latencies (~100 ms) after tetanization, the later P2 component was enhanced—the finding also reported in previous research and thus representing a more reliable and consistent effect (Mears & Spencer, 2012; Rygvold et al, 2021; Teo et al, 2014). While studies of repetitive suppression often show a synchronous decrease in the N1 and P2 components (Lanting et al, 2013; Mazer et al, 2021; Sambeth et al, 2004), many studies show isolated changes in these components in different experimental approaches (de Boer & Krumbholz, 2018; Hsu et al, 2014), which supports the assumption that these components reflect rather independent neurophysiological processes (Crowley & Colrain, 2004). Our work is in line with this view as N1 and P2 showed opposite as well as uncorrelated changes after stimulation.…”

From Sound Perception to Automatic Detection of Schizophrenia: An EEG-Based Deep Learning Approach

“…Abnormalities in these components have been consistently reported in SZ patients, which include reduced amplitude of the N100 as well as reduced amplitude and shorter peak latencies of the P200 ( 57 ). Moreover, both auditory ERP components have been used to examine sensory and information processing impairments in SZ ( 58 ). In light of this, our focus turned to these components, in particular their amplitude and latency.…”