Respiratory Variability during Different Auditory Stimulation Periods in Schizophrenia Patients

Abstract

SummaryBackground: Schizophrenic patients are known to have difficulty processing emotions and to exhibit impairment in stimuli discrimination. However, there is limited knowledge regarding their physiological responsivity to auditory stimuli. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to compare the respiratory effects of two types of auditory stimuli with emotional content, classical Turkish music (CTM) and white noise (WN), on schizophrenia patients and healthy control subjects. Methods: Forty-six individuals participated in the experiment, and respiratory signals derived from a strain-gauge were recorded. Two important respiratory patterns, respiration rate and depth, were analyzed. Results: The results indicated that the patients presented a significantly higher respiration rate than control subjects during the initial baseline and WN exposure periods. Although CTM evoked an increase in respiration rates and a decrease in respiration depths in the control group, no significant differences were found during the stimulation periods in the patient group. The respiration rate was lower in the post-stimulation period than during the initial baseline period, and no respiration depth differences were found for the WN, music or post-stimulation periods in the schizophrenia group. Patients exhibited a greater respiration depth than the control subjects over all periods; however, a significant difference between the patient and control groups was obtained in the second resting condition and CTM exposure period. Furthermore, to analyze the effect of symptom severity on respiratory patterns, patients were divided into two classes according to their Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale score. Conclusions: Further studies are needed to correlate respiratory differences with emotionally evocative stimuli and to refine our understanding of the dynamics of these types of stimuli in relation to clinical state and medication effects.

Estimation of nonlinear measures of schizophrenia patients' EEG in emotional states

“…The mean value for evaluation ratings of the WN stimulus was 1.36(±0.65) and the corresponding value for the CTM was 4.86(±0.35) in controls and the same values in patients were 1.18(±0.39) and 4.82(±0.39), respectively showing that the selected stimuli were relatively emotional to the participants. What is different between the two stimuli is that the CTM has a relatively narrow bandwidth of nearly 11 kHz in Fast Fourier Transform power spectrum analysis which is shown in our previous work [30]. On the other hand WN is a random signal that covers all frequencies.…”

“…There are several possible explanations for this result, one of which is that the patients with schizophrenia have been noted to have shortcomings in emotional dysfunctions [54]. Another possible explanation is the impairments in auditory stimuli discrimination of patients [30]. According to the patients' subjective evaluation, they found the WN as an uncomfortable stimulus.…”

“…The WN, a rain falling sound with thunder on a river, was used as a negative stimulus because previous studies had shown this stimulus to be uncomfortable, annoying, and alerting [27,28]. The music was a positive instrumental mode (makam, in Turkish) of CTM that belongs to the Hüseyni makam associated with serenity [29][30][31]. Moreover, in one of our previous studies, participant subjective ratings of auditory stimulation periods were used [30].…”

“…The music was a positive instrumental mode (makam, in Turkish) of CTM that belongs to the Hüseyni makam associated with serenity [29][30][31]. Moreover, in one of our previous studies, participant subjective ratings of auditory stimulation periods were used [30]. Participants were asked to rate their emotions induced by music and noise.…”

From Bed to Bench: Bridging from Informatics Practice to Theory

“…A certain new focus was on psychiatry and mental health, due to new opportunities through health-enabling technologies (e.g., [58], [59]). Last, but not least, questions on appropriate evaluation approaches were discussed (e.g., [60], [61], [62]).…”