title: Event-related potentials demonstrate deficits in acoustic segmentation in schizophrenia.
abstract: Segmentation of the acoustic environment into discrete percepts is an important facet of auditory scene analysis (ASA). Segmentation of auditory stimuli into perceptually meaningful and localizable groups is central to ASA in everyday situations; for example, separation of discrete words from continuous sentences when processing language. This is particularly relevant to schizophrenia, where deficits in perceptual organization have been linked to symptoms and cognitive dysfunction. Here we examined event-related potentials in response to grouped tones to elucidate schizophrenia-related differences in acoustic segmentation. We report for the first time in healthy subjects a sustained potential that begins with group initiation and ends with the last tone of the group. These potentials were reduced in schizophrenia, with the greatest differences in responses to first and final tones. Importantly, reductions in sustained potentials in schizophrenia patients were associated with greater negative symptoms and deficits in IQ, working memory, learning, and social cognition. These results suggest deficits in auditory pattern segmentation in schizophrenia may compound deficits in many higher-order facets of the disorder.
authors.affiliation: Clinical Neurophysiology Research Laboratory, Western Psychiatric Institute & Clinic, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, United States.
authors.forename: Brian A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Coffman
authors.affiliation: Clinical Neurophysiology Research Laboratory, Western Psychiatric Institute & Clinic, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, United States.
authors.forename: Sarah M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Haigh
authors.affiliation: Clinical Neurophysiology Research Laboratory, Western Psychiatric Institute & Clinic, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, United States.
authors.forename: Tim K
authors.initials: TK
authors.lastname: Murphy
authors.affiliation: Clinical Neurophysiology Research Laboratory, Western Psychiatric Institute & Clinic, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, United States. Electronic address: salisburyd@upmc.edu.
authors.forename: Dean F
authors.initials: DF
authors.lastname: Salisbury
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D001308:Auditory Perceptual Disorders / Q000209:etiology* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D018913:Event-Related Potentials, P300 / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000150:complications*; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Auditory perception; EEG; N2; Negative symptoms; Schizophrenia; Sustained potential