Clinical and Cognitive Significance of Auditory Sensory Processing Deficits in Schizophrenia

Abstract

Objective Although patients with schizophrenia exhibit impaired suppression of the P50 event-related brain potential (ERP) to the second of two identical auditory stimuli during a paired-stimulus paradigm, uncertainty remains over whether this deficit in inhibitory gating of auditory sensory processes has relevance for patients’ clinical symptoms or cognitive performance. We examined associations between P50 suppression deficits and several core features of schizophrenia to address this gap. Method P50 was recorded from 52 patients with schizophrenia and 41 healthy individuals during a standard auditory paired-stimulus task. The Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms (SAPS) and the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS) were used to assess clinical symptoms, and the MATRICS Cognitive Consensus Battery (MCCB) measured cognitive performance in a subsample of 39 patients. Correlation and regression analyses were used to examine P50 suppression in relation to clinical symptom and cognitive performance measures. Results Patients with schizophrenia demonstrated a deficit in P50 suppression when compared to healthy participants, replicating prior research. Within the patient sample, impaired P50 suppression covaried reliably with greater difficulties in attention, poorer working memory, and reduced processing speed. Conclusions Impaired suppression of auditory stimuli is associated with core pathological features of schizophrenia, increasing confidence that P50 inhibitory processing can inform the development of interventions that target cognitive impairments in this chronic and debilitating mental illness.

Dysfunction of Inferior Parietal Lobule During Sensory Gating in Patients With Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment

“…We found that M50 SG ratios of the right IPL were significantly correlated with the performance of short-term memory function (Figure 3). These results were consistent with previous studies showing that lower P50 SG and/or N100 SG ratios (i.e., better SG function) were related to better performance of attention and working memory in patients with schizophrenia (Smith et al, 2010;Hamilton et al, 2018). As for the AD patients, gating deficit has been related to the poor performance of DSB when healthy elderly and AD subjects were pooled together (Thomas et al, 2010).…”

“…Based on the ROIs showing significant between-group SG differences, we further explored the relationships between SG and auditory short-term memory tests. Although there were several studies investigating the correlations between SG and all kinds of neuropsychological tests (Smith et al, 2010;Thomas et al, 2010;Hamilton et al, 2018), the present study only selected those in which auditory short-term memory was assessed since these cognitive assessments and SG were tested through the auditory modality. We found that M50 SG ratios of the right IPL were significantly correlated with the performance of short-term memory function (Figure 3).…”

Pharmacological Mechanisms Involved in Sensory Gating Disruption Induced by (±)-3,4-Methylene- Dioxymethamphetamine (MDMA): Relevance to Schizophrenia

“…Several studies have found impairments in P50 2 of 17 suppression in schizophrenia patients and the P50 deficit is argued to be an suppression endophenotype marker of the illness [13]. Moreover, the magnitude of P50 gating disruption was associated with specific illness characteristics such as difficulties in attention, poorer working memory, and reduced processing speed [14].…”

Multivariate pattern analysis of brain structure predicts functional outcome after auditory-based cognitive training interventions

“…Previous group-based studies have shown that baseline structural anatomical integrity (12)(13)(14) is associated with greater responsiveness to CT, suggesting that certain individual neurobiological characteristics might determine who will benefit the most from this intervention, but individual-level predictions have not yet been demonstrated. In particular, prior research indicates that patients with schizophrenia (SCZ) show most prominent deficits in auditory processing, that contributed to higher-level cognitive impairments and poor functioning (15)(16)(17) Promisingly, we have also found that the most prominent gains in auditory/verbal functions were induced after auditory-based CT (ABCT) interventions (18)(19)(20)(21)(22) This work prompted us to investigate multivariate pattern analyses (MVPA) to identify baseline patterns in grey matter (GM) volume in patients with schizophrenia (SCZ) that predicted improved functioning after an auditory-based CT (ABCT) intervention, operating at the single subject level. Multivariate analyses of neuroanatomical brain properties have revealed high specificity of predicting improved functioning in Clinical High Risk (CHR) individuals with psychosis in single-site studies at the individual level (23,24), and have also shown remarkable multi-site generalizability (25).…”