P50, N100, and P200 Auditory Sensory Gating Deficits in Schizophrenia Patients

Abstract

Background: Sensory gating describes neurological processes of filtering out redundant or unnecessary stimuli during information processing, and sensory gating deficits may contribute to the symptoms of schizophrenia. Among the three components of auditory event-related potentials reflecting sensory gating, P50 implies pre-attentional filtering of sensory information and N100/P200 reflects attention triggering and allocation processes. Although diminished P50 gating has been extensively documented in patients with schizophrenia, previous studies on N100 were inconclusive, and P200 has been rarely examined. This study aimed to investigate whether patients with schizophrenia have P50, N100, and P200 gating deficits compared with control subjects. Methods: Control subjects and clinically stable schizophrenia patients were recruited. The mid-latency auditory evoked responses, comprising P50, N100, and P200, were measured using the auditory-paired click paradigm without manipulation of attention. Sensory gating parameters included S1 amplitude, S2 amplitude, amplitude difference (S1-S2), and gating ratio (S2/S1). We also evaluated schizophrenia patients with PANSS to be correlated with sensory gating indices. Results: One hundred four patients and 102 control subjects were examined. Compared to the control group, schizophrenia patients had significant sensory gating deficits in P50, N100, and P200, reflected by larger gating ratios and smaller amplitude differences. Further analysis revealed that the S2 amplitude of P50 was larger, while the S1 amplitude of N100/P200 was smaller, in schizophrenia patients than in the controls. We found no correlations between sensory gating indices and schizophrenia positive or negative symptom clusters. However, we found a negative correlation between the P200 S2 amplitude and Bell's emotional discomfort factor/Wallwork's depressed factor. Conclusion: Till date, this study has the largest sample size to analyze P50, N100, and P200 collectively by adopting the passive auditory paired-click paradigm without distractors. With covariates controlled for possible confounds, such as age, education, smoking amount and retained pairs, we found that schizophrenia patients had significant sensory gating deficits in P50-N100-P200. The schizophrenia patients had demonstrated

Tracing Links Between Early Auditory Information Processing and Negative Symptoms in Schizophrenia: An ERP Study

“…In contrast, the study conducted by Li et al failed to find any specific associations between primary and persistent negative symptoms and N100, since both subjects with deficit and those with non-deficit schizophrenia presented the same alterations in N100 (reduced amplitude and delayed latency) as compared to HCs ( 89 ). Other two studies did not find a significant correlation between N100 and negative symptom severity ( 90 , 91 ). While in a small sample of men with recent-onset psychosis, a correlation was found between N100 and negative symptom severity ( 85 ).…”

“…However, the majority of the above-mentioned studies ( 85 , 89 – 91 ) used first generation rating scales, such as the PANSS ( 92 ) and the scale for the assessment of negative symptoms (SANS) ( 93 ) to assess negative symptoms. These assessment instruments present some limitations, as they include aspects that actually are not conceptualized as negative symptoms, but are mostly related to cognitive functions and disorganization ( 2 ).…”

Impaired interaural correlation processing in people with schizophrenia

“…The frontal-central N1-P2 auditory event-related potentials (AEP), as an exogenous component, mainly reflects the early-stage auditory processing of psychophysical properties (e.g., loudness) of sound stimuli (Juckel et al, 2008;Wagner et al, 2013). The diminished early-stage auditory processing of schizophrenia has also been supported by the sensory gating disturbances reflected by increased P50 gating ratio, decreased S1-N1-P2 amplitude (Shen et al, 2020;Vlcek et al, 2014) and the auditory-feature-conjunction F I G U R E 5 The grand-mean inter-trial phase coherence (ITPC) for the four conditions at FCz and bar charts for ERSP and ITPC. (a) Time-frequency maps of ITPC for the four conditions.…”

Auditory Sensory Gating in Children With Cochlear Implants: A P50-N100-P200 Study

“…These two components have been proposed to involve distinct neural activities ( Boutros et al, 2004 ; Chien et al, 2019 ) and thus be related to different functions ( Lijffijt et al, 2009 ). Unlike the P50 involving the early phase of information processing, the N100 and P200 are considered to reflect triggering and allocation of attention, respectively ( Shen et al, 2020 ). Thus, different phases of auditory information filtering should be investigated by the P50-N100-P200 complex.…”