AI Article Synopsis
- Schizophrenia is linked to atypical brain responses (ERPs) during auditory tasks, particularly low levels of P300 and other related measures, which might be connected to auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH).
- A study compared brain activity in 18 non-psychotic individuals experiencing AVH to 18 healthy controls using an auditory oddball task.
- Results showed increased P300 amplitudes in the AVH group, suggesting better attention effort, challenging the idea that reduced attention is a primary factor in AVH experiences.
Article Abstract
Objective: Schizophrenia is associated with aberrant event-related potentials (ERPs) such as reductions in P300, processing negativity and mismatch negativity amplitudes. These deficits may be related to the propensity of schizophrenia patients to experience auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH). However, AVH are part of extensive and variable symptomatology in schizophrenia. For this reason non-psychotic individuals with AVH as an isolated symptom provide an excellent opportunity to investigate this relationship.
Methods: P300 waveforms, processing negativity and mismatch negativity were examined with an auditory oddball paradigm in 18 non-psychotic individuals with AVH and 18 controls.
Results: P300 amplitude was increased in the AVH group as compared to controls, reflecting superior effortful attention. A trend in the same direction was found for processing negativity. No significant differences were found for mismatch negativity.
Conclusion: Contrary to our expectations, non-psychotic individuals with AVH show increased rather than decreased psychophysiological measures of effortful attention compared to healthy controls, refuting a pivotal role of decreased effortful attention in the pathophysiology of AVH.
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| http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.schres.2010.04.017 | DOI Listing |
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