Impairment in activation of a frontal attention-switch mechanism in schizophrenic patients.
The present study addresses the difference in activities of frontal and temporal mismatch negativity (MMN) generators between healthy controls and schizophrenic patients. Auditory MMNs were measured from 13 medicated schizophrenic patients in a post-acute phase and 12 healthy controls. The probabilities of the standard stimuli were, in different experimental blocks, 95, 90, 80 or 70%. The mean amplitude of the MMN recorded at Fz was significantly smaller in schizophrenic patients than healthy controls only in the conditions with high probability of standard stimuli, while that recorded at mastoid sites was not different in any condition. The present study suggested that schizophrenic patients might fail to cause involuntary attention switch to stimulus change reflected in the lowered MMN amplitude recorded at Fz; whereas the patients might index an adequate detection of the deviant event reflected by the similar amplitude of MMN recorded at mastoid sites.
Sato
Yasuharu
Y
Department of Neuropsychiatry, Hirosaki University School of Medicine, Hirosaki 036-8562, Japan. y-sato-m@oodate.or.jp
Yabe
Hirooki
H
Todd
Juanita
J
Michie
Patricia
P
Shinozaki
Naoko
N
Sutoh
Takeyuki
T
Hiruma
Tomiharu
T
Nashida
Tadayoshi
T
Matsuoka
Takashi
T
Kaneko
Sunao
S
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D001307:Auditory Perception; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D008606:Mental Processes; D008875:Middle Aged; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000503:physiopathology*; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*