title: Greater positive schizotypy relates to reduced N100 activity during rejection scenes.
abstract: Social anxiety due to rejection sensitivity (RS) exacerbates psychosis-like experiences in the general population. While reduced dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) activity during social rejection in high schizotypy has suggested self-distancing from rejection, earlier stages of mental processing such as feature encoding could also contribute to psychosis-like experiences. This study aimed to determine the stage of mental processing of social rejection that relates to positive schizotypy. Forty-one healthy participants were assessed for schizotypy and RS. Event-related potential amplitudes (ERPs) were measured at frontal, temporal and parieto-occipital sites and their cortical sources (dACC, temporal pole and lingual gyrus) at early (N100) and late (P300 and late slow wave, LSW) timeframes during rejection, acceptance and neutral scenes. ERPs were compared between social interaction types. Correlations were performed between positive schizotypy (defined as the presence of perceptual aberrations, hallucinatory experiences and magical thinking), RS and ERPs during rejection. Amplitude was greater during rejection than acceptance or neutral conditions at the dACC-P300, parieto-occipital-P300, dACC-LSW and frontal-LSW. RS correlated positively with positive schizotypy. Reduced dACC N100 activity during rejection correlated with greater positive schizotypy and RS. Reduced dACC N100 activity and greater RS independently predicted positive schizotypy. An N100 deficit that indicates reduced feature encoding of rejection scenes increases with greater positive schizotypy and RS. Higher RS shows that a greater tendency to misattribute ambiguous social situations as rejecting also increases with positive schizotypy. These two processes, namely primary bottom-up sensory processing and secondary misattribution of rejection, combine to increase psychosis-like experiences.
authors.affiliation: Division of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent University, Burton Street, Nottingham NG1 4BU, UK. Electronic address: Preethi.premkumar@ntu.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Preethi
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Premkumar
authors.affiliation: King׳s College London, Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK; NIHR Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK.
authors.forename: Juliana
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Onwumere
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wilson
authors.affiliation: Division of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent University, Burton Street, Nottingham NG1 4BU, UK.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sumich
authors.affiliation: Division of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent University, Burton Street, Nottingham NG1 4BU, UK.
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Castro
authors.affiliation: King׳s College London, Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK; NIHR Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK.
authors.forename: Veena
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Kumari
authors.affiliation: King׳s College London, Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK; NIHR Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK.
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kuipers
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Dorsal anterior cingulate cortex; Event-related potential; Rejection sensitivity; Schizotypy