Background: The event-related brain response mismatch negativity (MMN) registers changes in auditory stimulation with temporal lobe sources reflecting short-term echoic memory and frontal sources a deviance-induced switch in processing. Impairment, controversially present at the onset of schizophrenia, develops rapidly and can remain independent of clinical improvement. We examined the characteristics of the scalp-recorded MMN and related these to tests of short-term memory and set-shifting. We assessed whether the equivalent dipole sources are affected already at illness-onset in adolescence and how these features differ after a 14-year course following an adolescent onset. The strength, latency, orientation and location of frontal and temporal lobe sources of MMN activity early and late in the course of adolescent-onset schizophrenia are analysed and illustrated.

Mismatch negativity (MMN) is an event-related potential measure of auditory change detection. It is widely reported to be smaller in patients with schizophrenia and may not improve along with otherwise successful clinical treatment. The main aim of this report is to explore ways of measuring and presenting four features of frequency-deviant MMN dipole sources (dipole moment, peak latency, brain location and orientation) and to relate these to the processes of psychopathology and illness progression. Data from early onset patients (EOS) at the start of the illness in adolescence, and others who had their first break in adolescence 15 years ago (S-15Y) were compared with two groups of age-matched healthy controls (C-EOS, C-15Y). A four-source model fitted the MMN waveform recorded from all four groups, whether MMN amplitude was more (EOS) or less (S-15Y) reduced. The locations were in the left superior temporal and anterior cingulate gyri, right superior temporal and inferior/mid frontal cortices. Dipole latencies confirmed a bottom-up sequence of processing and dipole moments were larger in the temporal lobes and on the left. Patients showed small dipole location changes that were more marked in the S-15Y than the EOS group (more rostral for the left anterior cingulate, more caudal for the right mid-frontal dipole) consistent with illness progression. The modelling of MMN dipole sources on brain atlas and anatomical images suggests that there is a degree of dissociation during illness between small progressive anatomical changes and some functional recovery indexed by scalp recordings from patients with an onset in adolescence 15 years before compared to adolescents in their first episode.

By means of these psychophysical approaches a diverse class of chemicals can be described and compared with respect to their chemosensory potency. This information can be used twofold (a) for the evaluation of existing studies reporting sensory irritations and (b) for the design of experimental exposure studies.

In low concentrations, environment pollutants like volatile organic compounds (VOCs) may be perceived via olfaction. Modulators of odor-mediated health effects include age, gender, or personality traits related to chemical sensitivity. Severe multi-organ symptoms in response to odors also characterize a syndrome referred to as idiopathic environmental intolerance (IEI). One prominent feature of IEI is self-reported odor hypersensitivity that is usually not accompanied by enhanced olfactory functioning. The impact of interindividual differences in olfactory functioning on chemosensory perceptions is sparsely investigated, and therefore this study addressed the influences of different types of modulators, including olfactory functioning. In a psychophysical scaling experiment, an age-stratified sample of 44 males and females was examined. After controlled application of nine concentrations of six chemicals by flow-olfactometry, the participants rated four olfactory and nine trigeminal perceptions. Weak effects were found for gender and age, as well as some modulating effects of self-reported chemical sensitivity and odor discrimination ability. For chemical sensitivity, the results were as expected: Subjects with higher sensitivity reported stronger perceptions. The individual odor threshold (n-butanol) exerted no influence on the subjects' ratings of olfactory and trigeminal perceptions. Surprisingly, above-average odor discrimination ability was associated with lower ratings of odor intensity and nausea. This particular aspect of olfactory functioning might be a reflection of a more objective odor evaluation model buffering emotional responses to environmental odors.