Impaired interaural correlation processing in people with schizophrenia

Abstract

Detection of transient changes in interaural correlation is based on the temporal precision of the central representations of acoustic signals. Whether schizophrenia impairs the temporal precision in the interaural correlation process is not clear. In both participants with schizophrenia and matched healthy-control participants, this study examined the detection of a break in interaural correlation (BIC, a change in interaural correlation from 1 to 0 and back to 1), including the longest interaural delay at which a BIC was just audible, representing the temporal extent of the primitive auditory memory (PAM). Moreover, BIC-induced electroencephalograms (EEGs) and the relationships between the early binaural psychoacoustic processing and higher cognitive functions, which were assessed by the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS), were examined. The results showed that compared to healthy controls, participants with schizophrenia exhibited poorer BIC detection, PAM and RBANS score. Both the BIC-detection accuracy and the PAM extent were correlated with the RBANS score. Moreover, participants with schizophrenia showed weaker BIC-induced N1-P2 amplitude which was correlated with both theta-band power and intertrial phase coherence. These results suggested that schizophrenia impairs the temporal precision of the central representations of acoustic signals, affecting both interaural correlation processing and higher-order cognitions.

Relationship of loudness-dependent auditory evoked potentials with change-related cortical responses

“…In other words, the change-related response reflects the fundamental information processing that is common across sensory modalities. Moreover, it has been reported that the amplitude of change-related potentials evoked by a transient decrease in binaural correlation is reduced in schizophrenia [ 31 ]. Therefore, it is anticipated that change-related responses can be utilized for clarifying the mechanism of schizophrenia.…”