Schizophrenia alters intra-network functional connectivity in the caudate for detecting speech under informational speech masking conditions

Abstract

AbstractsBackgroundSpeech recognition under noisy “cocktail-party” environments involves multiple perceptual/cognitive processes, including target detection, selective attention, irrelevant signal inhibition, sensory/working memory, and speech production. Compared to health listeners, people with schizophrenia are more vulnerable to masking stimuli and perform worse in speech recognition under speech-on-speech masking conditions. Although the schizophrenia-related speech-recognition impairment under “cocktail-party” conditions is associated with deficits of various perceptual/cognitive processes, it is crucial to know whether the brain substrates critically underlying speech detection against informational speech masking are impaired in people with schizophrenia.MethodsUsing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), this study investigated differences between people with schizophrenia (n = 19, mean age = 33 ± 10 years) and their matched healthy controls (n = 15, mean age = 30 ± 9 years) in intra-network functional connectivity (FC) specifically associated with target-speech detection under speech-on-speech-masking conditions.ResultsThe target-speech detection performance under the speech-on-speech-masking condition in participants with schizophrenia was significantly worse than that in matched healthy participants (healthy controls). Moreover, in healthy controls, but not participants with schizophrenia, the strength of intra-network FC within the bilateral caudate was positively correlated with the speech-detection performance under the speech-masking conditions. Compared to controls, patients showed altered spatial activity pattern and decreased intra-network FC in the caudate.ConclusionsIn people with schizophrenia, the declined speech-detection performance under speech-on-speech masking conditions is associated with reduced intra-caudate functional connectivity, which normally contributes to detecting target speech against speech masking via its functions of suppressing masking-speech signals.

Impaired interaural correlation processing in people with schizophrenia

“…Thirty people with a DSM‐IV diagnosis of schizophrenia and 31 demographics‐matched healthy controls (age ranging from 18 to 49 years) participated in this study. The recruitment criteria were the same as used previously (Li et al, 2017; Wu, Zheng, Li, Wu, et al, 2017; Wu, Zheng, Li, Zhang, et al, 2017; Zheng et al, 2016, 2018). Schizophrenic symptoms were rated with the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS).…”

“…Human listeners with schizophrenia often find it difficult to recognize target speech in ‘cocktail party’ environments (Li et al, 2017; Wu et al, 2012; Wu, Li, et al, 2013; Wu, Wang, & Li, 2018; Wu, Zheng, et al, 2018; Wu, Zheng, Li, Wu, et al, 2017; Wu, Zheng, Li, Zhang, et al, 2017; Zheng et al, 2016, 2018). This schizophrenia‐associated difficulty may arise from the impaired precision of central representations of acoustic signals, including the impaired sensitivity to changes in interaural correlation, which underlies the ability to distinguish concurrent sounds, to localize sound sources, and to perceptually segregate the target sound from competing masking sounds (Goupell et al, 2018; Huang, Huang, et al, 2009; Li et al, 2013; Lotfi et al, 2019; Lüddemann et al, 2009; Ramage et al, 2012, 2016; Spencer et al, 2016; Wang et al, 2018; Weintraub et al, 2012).…”