Abnormality of Auditory Mismatch Negativity in Depression and Its Dependence on Stimulus Intensity

Abstract

Mismatch negativity (MMN) is thought to reveal several abnormalities of cognitive functioning. Although depression often affects cognitive functioning, previous studies concerning MMN in depressed patients provided conflicting results. In recent reports, it has been suggested that depressed patients may show abnormal auditory response to regular auditory stimuli presented with at a relatively high intensity. We thus recorded acoustic MMN in 16 drug-free patients suffering from moderate depression and in 10 healthy subjects at 2 different stimulus intensities. Differences in MMN latency and amplitude between depressed patients and healthy subjects reached the significance level only for high intensity stimulation, and they were consistent with a dysfunction of frontal MMN subcomponents in depressed patients. This finding suggests that consistent MMN abnormalities can be observed in depressed patients by using high-intensity stimulation; moreover, it supports the hypothesis of disturbances of frontal networks in depression even in early stages of disease.

Event-Related Potentials to Changes in Sound Intensity Demonstrate Alterations in Brain Function Related to Depression and Aging

“…This aligns with our previous study, which applied the same stimulus conditions and found no differences in MMN between first-episode depressed, recurrent depressed and non-depressed young and middle-aged adults (Ruohonen and Astikainen, 2017). Previous studies have found inconsistent results for the modulation of MMN in depression; some have found attenuated MMN in depressed participants (Takei et al, 2009;Naismith et al, 2012;Qiao et al, 2013;Chen et al, 2015); some have found augmented MMN (Kähkönen et al, 2007;He et al, 2010;Restuccia et al, 2016); and some have found no difference in MMN between depressed and controls (Umbricht et al, 2003). The discrepancies among the studies could be related to differences in the applied stimuli or the type of deviance.…”

“…The discrepancies among the studies could be related to differences in the applied stimuli or the type of deviance. Studies that associated augmented MMN with depression applied frequency changes and relatively high stimulus intensities (Kähkönen et al, 2007;He et al, 2010;Restuccia et al, 2016); studies that associated attenuated MMN with depression mostly applied duration changes (Naismith et al, 2012;Qiao et al, 2013;Chen et al, 2015). Possibly, the intensity change condition (used in the present study) is not the best tool for detecting depression-related effects on the MMN time window.…”

“…Several studies have reported attenuated MMN in older adults (Czigler et al, 1992;Schroeder et al, 1995;Gaeta et al, 1998;Alain and Woods, 1999;Cooper et al, 2006;Čeponiene et al, 2008; for a review, see Näätänen et al, 2011), but studies on depression have shown mixed results. Some depression studies have indicated augmented MMN for frequency changes (Kähkönen et al, 2007;He et al, 2010;Restuccia et al, 2016), while others have found attenuated MMN amplitude for duration changes (Naismith et al, 2012;Qiao et al, 2013;Chen et al, 2015), or attenuated MMN for both duration and frequency changes (Takei et al, 2009) in depressed participants compared to controls. Furthermore, other studies examining duration and frequency changes (Umbricht et al, 2003) or intensity changes (Ruohonen and Astikainen, 2017) found no depressionrelated effects on MMN.…”

“…These discrepancies may be related to differences in the type of sound change (frequency, duration or intensity) applied in the experiments. Notably, studies that used frequency changes in high-intensity sounds (60 dB above the hearing threshold, or sounds presented at 80 dB) have found augmented MMN in depressed participants (Kähkönen et al, 2007;He et al, 2010;Restuccia et al, 2016).…”

“…As mentioned above, sensory gating deficit has been demonstrated in aging (Anderer et al, 1996;Amenedo and Díaz, 1998;Alain and Woods, 1999;Strömmer et al, 2017; for a review, see Friedman, 2011), and intensity dependence may be a relevant marker for depression (Gopal et al, 2004;Fitzgerald et al, 2009;Lee et al, 2014). Furthermore, deficits in auditory change detection as indexed by MMN have been associated with both aging (Czigler et al, 1992;Schroeder et al, 1995;Gaeta et al, 1998;Alain and Woods, 1999;Cooper et al, 2006;Čeponiene et al, 2008) and depression (Kähkönen et al, 2007;He et al, 2010;Naismith et al, 2012;Qiao et al, 2013;Chen et al, 2015;Restuccia et al, 2016).…”