Mismatch negativity reveals plasticity in cortical dynamics after 1-hour of auditory training exercises

Veronica B Perez; Makoto Miyakoshi; Scott D Makeig; Gregory A Light

doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2019.06.003

Mismatch negativity reveals plasticity in cortical dynamics after 1-hour of auditory training exercises

Int J Psychophysiol. 2019 Nov:145:40-47. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2019.06.003. Epub 2019 Jun 6.

Authors

Veronica B Perez¹, Makoto Miyakoshi², Scott D Makeig², Gregory A Light³

Affiliations

¹ VA Desert Pacific Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC), VA San Diego Healthcare System, San Diego, CA, United States; Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States; Department of Psychology, California School of Professional Psychology, Alliant International University, San Diego, CA, United States.
² Swartz Center for Computational Neuroscience, Institute for Neural Computation, University of California San Diego, United States.
³ VA Desert Pacific Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC), VA San Diego Healthcare System, San Diego, CA, United States; Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States. Electronic address: glight@ucsd.edu.

PMID: 31176741
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2019.06.003

Abstract

Background: Impaired sensory processing contributes to deficits in cognitive and psychosocial functioning in individuals with schizophrenia (SZ). Mismatch Negativity (MMN), an event-related potential (ERP) index of sensory discrimination associated with cognitive and psychosocial functioning, is a candidate biomarker of auditory discrimination and thus possibly of changes following auditory-based Targeted Cognitive Training (TCT). Here we evaluated the acute effect of TCT on cortical processes supporting auditory discrimination.

Methods: MMN was assessed in 28 SZ outpatients before and after a single 1-hour (hr) session of "Sound Sweeps," a pitch discrimination task that is a component of the TCT suite of exercises. Independent component (IC) analysis was applied to decompose 64-channel scalp-recorded electroencephalogram (EEG) activity into spatiotemporally stationary sources and their activities. ICs from all patients were pooled to find commonalities in their cortical locations. IC cluster-mean ERPs were evaluated to determine the clusters contributing to the (140-200 ms) MMN difference between responses to deviant and standard tone stimuli respectively.

Results: Two frontal IC clusters centered in orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) accounted for >77% of MMN variance across all scalp channels. After 1-hr auditory training, significant suppression of ACC cluster contributions was detected, whereas the OFC cluster contribution was unchanged.

Conclusions: Prior to TCT, the MMN response was dominated by EEG effective sources in or near OFC and ACC. However, after 1-hr of auditory-based TCT, a significant attenuation of ACC was observed, whereas OFC contribution to MMN persisted. The present findings support further trials designed to test whether training-related MMN plasticity in the ACC after 1-hr may predict individual patient response to a full course of TCT.

Keywords: Biomarker; Cognition; Mismatch negativity; Psychosis; Training; Treatment.

Publication types

Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Acoustic Stimulation
Adult
Attention / physiology
Audiometry
Auditory Perception / physiology
Electroencephalography
Evoked Potentials, Auditory / physiology*
Female
Frontal Lobe / physiopathology*
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Neuronal Plasticity / physiology*
Pitch Discrimination / physiology*
Schizophrenia / physiopathology*

Grants and funding

UL1 TR000100/TR/NCATS NIH HHS/United States