EEG Microstates and Its Relationship With Clinical Symptoms in Patients With Schizophrenia

Abstract

Schizophrenia is a complex and devastating disorder with unclear pathogenesis. Electroencephalogram (EEG) microstates have been suggested as a potential endophenotype for this disorder. However, no clear dynamic pattern of microstates has been found. This study aims to identify the dynamics of EEG microstates in schizophrenia and to test whether schizophrenia patients with altered clinical symptoms severity showed different microstates abnormalities compared with healthy controls. Resting-state EEG data in 46 individuals who met the ICD-10 diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia and 39 healthy controls was recorded. The patients with schizophrenia were divided into subgroups based on the level of their negative or positive symptoms assessed using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. Microstate parameters (contribution, occurrence, and duration) of four prototypical microstate classes (A–D) were investigated. Compared with healthy controls, individuals with schizophrenia showed increased duration and contribution of microstate class C, decreased contribution and occurrence of microstate class B. Different microstate patterns were found between subgroups and healthy controls. Results in this study support the consistent observation of abnormal EEG microstates patterns in patients with schizophrenia and highlight the necessity to divide subjects into subgroups according to their clinical symptoms.

Abnormalities of Electroencephalography Microstates in Drug-Naïve, First-Episode Schizophrenia

“…The abnormality of EEG microstates in patients with schizophrenia has been observed and reported in multiple previous studies (18)(19)(20)(21)(22), most of which involved patients with chronic conditions (19,23,24) or a mixed sample with no restriction on the course of disease (25)(26)(27)(28). For schizophrenia, the early stage represents the transition from the premorbid to the morbid state (7); a clear diagnosis and early intervention during this period can help avoid the interference of long course and numerous attacks of the disease.…”

Abnormalities of electroencephalography microstates in patients with depression and their association with cognitive function

“…These four classical maps of EEG microstates are: (A) States associated with auditory processing; (B) States associated with visual processing; (C) States associated with cognitive control networks; and (D) States associated with dorsal attention networks[ 11 ]. EEG microstate analysis has been widely used in studies related to psychiatric disorders, showing schizophrenia[ 12 - 14 ], bipolar disorders[ 15 , 16 ], anxiety disorders[ 17 ], panic disorders[ 18 ], and insomnia[ 19 ]. For example, increases in microstate C and decreases in microstate D have been consistently identified as characteristic changes in individuals with schizophrenia.…”

Abnormalities in electroencephalographic microstates among violent patients with schizophrenia

“…Cruz et al found that patients with schizophrenia and their siblings showed an increased presence of microstate class C and a decreased presence of microstate class D (18). One of our previous studies found that patients with schizophrenia exhibited an increased duration and coverage of microstate class C and decreased coverage and incidence of microstate class B, as compared with healthy controls (19). There is a growing body of evidence supporting that schizophrenia with violence might be a biologically based subtype of schizophrenia with neurobiological (20, 21) and neuropsychological deficits (22), and a study has classified it into a different phenotype (23).…”