Vanessa Suazo

A comparative study of event-related coupling patterns during an auditory oddball task in schizophrenia

OBJECTIVE The aim of this research is to explore the coupling patterns of brain dynamics during an auditory oddball task in schizophrenia (SCH). APPROACH Event-related electroencephalographic (ERP) activity was recorded from 20 SCH patients and 20 healthy controls. The coupling changes between auditory response and pre-stimulus baseline were calculated in conventional EEG frequency bands (theta, alpha, beta-1, beta-2 and gamma), using three coupling measures: coherence, phase-locking value and Euclidean distance. MAIN RESULTS Our results showed a statistically significant increase from baseline to response in theta coupling and a statistically significant decrease in beta-2 coupling in controls. No statistically significant changes were observed in SCH patients. SIGNIFICANCE Our findings support the aberrant salience hypothesis, since SCH patients failed to change their coupling dynamics between stimulus response and baseline when performing an auditory cognitive task. This result may reflect an impaired communication among neural areas, which may be related to abnormal cognitive functions.

Elevated noise power in gamma band related to negative symptoms and memory deficit in schizophrenia

BACKGROUND There is an increasing consideration for a disorganized cerebral activity in schizophrenia, perhaps relating to a synaptic inhibitory deficit in the illness. Noise power (scalp-recorded electroencephalographic activity unlocked to stimuli) may offer a non-invasive window to assess this possibility. METHODS 29 minimally-treated patients with schizophrenia (of which 17 were first episodes) and 27 healthy controls underwent clinical and cognitive assessments and an electroencephalographic recording during a P300 paradigm to calculate signal-to-noise ratio and noise power magnitudes in the theta and gamma bands. RESULTS In comparison to controls, a significantly higher gamma noise power was common to minimally-treated and first episode patients over P3, P4, T5 and Fz electrode sites. Those high values were directly correlated to negative symptom severity and inversely correlated to verbal memory scores in the patients. There were no differences in signal-to-noise ratio magnitudes among the groups. Gamma noise power at Fz discriminated significantly between patients and controls. No significant differences were found in theta noise power or in gamma noise power over the other electrode sites between the groups of patients and controls. LIMITATIONS We have not assessed phase-locked and non-phase locked power changes, a complementary approach that may yield useful information. CONCLUSIONS Gamma noise power may represent a useful and non-invasive tool for studying brain dysfunction in psychotic illness. These results suggest an inefficient activation pattern in schizophrenia.

Frontal gamma noise power and cognitive domains in schizophrenia

The cognitive deficit profile is different among individuals with schizophrenia. We quantified the amount of electroencephalographic activity unlocked to stimuli onset (noise power) over frontal regions regarding deficit in cognitive domains. Forty-six patients with schizophrenia and 27 healthy controls underwent clinical, cognitive and electrophysiological assessments. Noise power studies may be considered complementary but not equivalent to induced power studies. We compared gamma and theta noise power magnitude during a P300 paradigm between subsets of patients divided according to cognitive deficit in key domains and controls. Patients displayed higher gamma noise power activity at Fz site and significantly lower performance in all cognitive domains when compared to controls. The subset of patients with cognitive deficit for working memory and problem solving/executive functions domains displayed significantly higher frontal-lateral noise power values in comparison to the subset of patients without cognitive deficit and controls. Patients with significant cognitive deficits in domains with greater frontal contribution are also characterized by an abnormally higher gamma band noise power over the frontal region. Our data may endorse various biological subsets within schizophrenia, characterized by the presence or absence of a significant cognitive deficit in frontal domains.

Decreased entropy modulation of EEG response to novelty and relevance in schizophrenia during a P300 task

Abstract The analysis of the interaction between novelty and relevance may be of interest to test the aberrant salience hypothesis of schizophrenia (SCH). In comparison with other neuroimaging techniques, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging, electroencephalography (EEG) provides high temporal resolution. Therefore, EEG is useful to analyze transient dynamics in neural activity, even in the range of milliseconds. In this study, EEG activity from 31 patients with SCH and 38 controls was analyzed using Shannon spectral entropy (SE) and median frequency (MF). The aim of the study was to quantify differences between distractor (i.e., novelty) and target (i.e., novelty and relevance) tones in an auditory oddball paradigm. Healthy controls displayed a larger SE decrease in response to target stimulus than in response to distractor tones. SE decrease was accompanied by a significant and widespread reduction of MF (i.e., a significant slowing of EEG activity). In comparison with controls, patients showed a significant reduction of changes in SE in response to both target and distractor tones. These differences were also observed in patients that only received a minimal treatment prior to EEG recording. Furthermore, significant changes in SE were inversely correlated to positive and total symptoms severity for SCH patients. Our findings support the notion that SCH is associated with a reduced response to both novelty and relevance during an auditory P300 task.

Gamma Power and Cognition in Patients with Schizophrenia and Their First-Degree Relatives

Background: Gamma oscillations are essential for functional neural assembly formation underlying higher cerebral functions. Previous studies concerning gamma band power in schizophrenia have yielded diverse results. Methods: In this study, we assessed gamma band power in minimally treated patients with schizophrenia, their first-degree relatives and healthy controls during an oddball paradigm performance, as well as the relation between gamma power and cognitive performance. Results: We found a higher gamma power in the patient group than in the healthy controls at the P3, P4, Fz, Pz and T5 sites. Compared with their relatives, gamma power in the patients was only marginally higher over P3 and P4. We found a nearly significant inverse association between gamma power at F4 and Tower of London performance in the patients, as well as a significant inverse association between gamma power at T5 and verbal memory and working memory scores in the relatives. Conclusion: These results support higher total gamma power in association with schizophrenia and its inverse association with cognitive performance in patients and their first-degree relatives.

Limbic hyperactivity associated to verbal memory deficit in schizophrenia

In schizophrenia there seems to be an inefficient activation of prefrontal and hippocampal regions. Patients tend to show worse cognitive performance in functions subserved by those regions as compared to healthy controls in spite of higher regional activation. However, the association between activation abnormalities and cognitive deficits remains without being understood. In the present study, we compared cerebral perfusion using single-photon emission tomography (SPECT) in patients and controls to study the association between activation patterns and cognitive performance in this disease. The SPECT studies were simultaneously obtained with an electrophysiological recording during a P300 paradigm to elicit P3a and P3b components. We included 23 stable patients with paranoid schizophrenia and 29 healthy controls that underwent clinical and cognitive assessments. Patients with schizophrenia showed an increased perfusion in the right hippocampus with respect to healthy controls, they also displayed a statistically significant inverse association between perfusion in the left hippocampus and verbal memory performance. Healthy controls showed an inverse association between perfusion in the left dorsolateral prefrontal (DLPFC) region and working memory performance. P3b but not P3a amplitude was significantly lower in patients. The limbic overactivation in the patients may contribute to their cognitive deficits in verbal memory.

Structural correlates of cognitive deficit and elevated gamma noise power in schizophrenia.

The aim of this study was to assess the relation between cognition, gray matter (GM) volumes and gamma noise power (amount of background oscillatory activity in the gamma band) in schizophrenia.

Cognitive outcome and gamma noise power unrelated to neuregulin 1 and 3 variation in schizophrenia

BackgroundNeuregulins are a family of signalling proteins that orchestrate a broad range of cellular responses. Four genes encoding Neuregulins 1–4 have been identified so far in vertebrates. Among them, Neuregulin 1 and Neuregulin 3 have been reported to contribute to an increased risk for developing schizophrenia. We hypothesized that three specific variants of these genes (rs6994992 and rs3924999 for Neuregulin 1 and rs10748842 for Neuregulin 3) that have been related to this illness may modify information processing capacity in the cortex, which would be reflected in electrophysiological parameters (P3b amplitude or gamma noise power) and/or cognitive performance.MethodsWe obtained DNA from 31 patients with schizophrenia and 23 healthy controls and analyzed NRG1 rs6994992, NRG1 rs3924999 and NRG3 rs10748842 promoter polymorphisms by allelic discrimination with real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). We compared cognitive outcome, P300 amplitude parameters and an electroencephalographic measure of noise power in the gamma band between the groups dichotomized according to genotype.ResultsContrary to our hypothesis, we could not detect any significant influence of variation in Neuregulin 1/Neuregulin 3 polymorphisms on cognitive performance or electrophysiological parameters of patients with schizophrenia.ConclusionsDespite our findings, we cannot discard that other genetic variants and, more likely, interactions between those variants and with genetic variation related to different pathways may still influence cerebral processing in schizophrenia.

Relaciones entre síntomas psicóticos subclínicos y rendimiento cognitivo en la población general

INTRODUCTION Subclinical psychotic symptoms are associated to negative life outcomes in the general population, but their relationship with cognitive performance is still not well understood. Assessing the relationship between performance in cognitive domains and subclinical psychotic symptoms in the general population may also help understand the handicap attributed to clinical psychosis, in which these alterations are present. METHODS Subclinical and cognitive assessments were obtained in 203 participants from the general population by means of the Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences, the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia, the Wechsler Adults Intelligence Scale and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. The positive and negative subclinical symptoms and their relationship with age and cognition were examined, followed by assessing the influence of subclinical depression scores on the possible relationships between those subclinical psychotic symptoms and cognitive deficits. RESULTS Inverse relationships were found between frequency in the Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences positive dimension and motor speed, and frequency and distress in the Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences negative dimension and motor speed. A direct relationship was also found between distress scores of the positive dimension and executive functions. Both positive and negative subclinical symptoms were related to depression scores. CONCLUSIONS Psychotic symptoms, similar to those in the clinical population, may be associated with cognitive deficits in the general population.

Association between electroencephalographic modulation, psychotic-like experiences and cognitive performance in the general population

An association between deficit of electroencephalographic (EEG) modulation during an oddball task and psychotic symptoms has been described in clinical samples, in agreement with the proposed role of altered salience in psychosis. To discard the possible influence of medication, the relation between psychotic‐like experiences (PLE) and EEG modulation in the general population was explored.