Individuals at high risk for developing schizophrenia showed impairments in reading ability, neurocognition, and mismatch negativity generation, compared with controls, suggesting the development of schizophrenia might be correlated with underlying deficits in generation of mismatch negativity, a study published in Schizophrenia Research showed.
Lead author Ricardo E. Carrión, Ph.D., and his associates examined 34 people at high risk for schizophrenia and 33 healthy subjects from the Recognition and Prevention Program at the Zucker Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks, N.Y. The investigators collected several measures of neurocognitive function, including reading ability, mismatch negativity (MMN) to pitch, duration, and intensity deviants, and social and role (academic/work) functioning. They found high-risk subjects showed impairments in reading ability, neurocognition, and generation of MMN, compared with the controls. However, simultaneous regression analysis determined that only reduced responses to deviance in sound duration and volume predicted poor social and role functioning, respectively.
In schizophrenia, deficits are related to impaired MMN generation, suggesting a relationship between early auditory processing and functioning in the stages leading up to illness. Depending on their severity, these dysfunctions “require identification and intervention in order to limit long-term functional disability,” wrote Dr. Carrión of the division of psychiatry research at the hospital and at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in Manhasset, N.Y.
“Overall, these findings extend recent studies with adult patients demonstrating a link between MMN amplitudes and functioning, and implicate emerging sensory-processing deficits as prevention targets for functional impairments prior to the onset of psychosis,” wrote Dr. Carrión.
Read the full article here: Schizophr. Res. 2015 (doi:10.1016/j.schres.2015.01.030).