Elsevier

Biological Psychiatry

Volume 67, Issue 10, 15 May 2010, Pages 940-947
Biological Psychiatry

Archival Report
Mismatch Negativity, Social Cognition, and Functioning in Schizophrenia Patients

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2009.11.024Get rights and content

Background

Cognition and social cognition have been found to influence functional outcome in schizophrenia patients. However, little is known about the underlying neural substrates that are associated with social cognition or daily functioning. Prior studies found associations between mismatch negativity (MMN), an event-related potential response indexing early auditory processing, and functioning in schizophrenia patients.

Methods

In this study, we examined MMN, social cognition (social perception and theory of mind), and four domains of functioning (work, independent living, social networks, and family networks) in 33 schizophrenia patients and 42 demographically comparable healthy control subjects.

Results

Schizophrenia patients exhibited reduced MMN activity at frontocentral electrode sites compared with healthy control subjects. Within the schizophrenia sample, greater MMN activity at frontocentral sites correlated with better work and independent living (but not social or family networks) and with better social perception.

Conclusions

These results suggest that MMN activity is more closely tied to some outcome domains (work and independent living) than others. Mismatch negativity has been previously shown to be associated with basic cognition and functional outcome in schizophrenia, but these findings are the first, to our knowledge, to show MMN associations with social cognition. These results are consistent with cascade models of information processing in which deficits in early perceptual processing have a downstream impact on higher order social cognition and community functioning.

Section snippets

Participants

Thirty-three patients with schizophrenia (29 men, 4 women) and 42 normal control subjects (35 men, 7 women) participated in the study. All subjects were part of a larger study of early visual processing (Early Visual Processing in Schizophrenia; Principal Investigator: Michael Green). Schizophrenia patients were recruited from outpatient treatment clinics at the Veterans Affairs (VA) Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System and through presentations in the community. Twenty-seven patients were

Mismatch Negativity

Grand average MMN waveforms for each group are shown in Figure 1 and topographical maps are shown in Figure 2. As can be seen, both groups exhibited MMN activity in the expected frontocentral regions, though the patients exhibited clearly reduced MMN amplitudes. A 2 (group) × 34 (electrode) repeated measures ANOVA was performed to determine if there was differential responding across electrodes between groups. This initial analysis step, while not completely protecting analysis from type I

Discussion

This study is the first, to our knowledge, to examine correlations among MMN activity, daily functioning, and social cognition in schizophrenia patients. First, we replicated the finding of poorer MMN activity in schizophrenia patients compared with healthy control subjects. Second, the results of the study are consistent with prior reports showing significant correlations between MMN activity and daily functioning, using an expanded scale of daily functioning. Third, MMN was significantly

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