Short paper

Exploration of auditory P50 gating in schizophrenia by way of difference waves

Sidse M Arnfred

Experiments performed at the Department of Psychiatry, Bispebjerg Hospital, University Hospital of Copenhagen, Bispebjerg Bakke 23, DK-2400 København NV, Denmark

author email corresponding author email

Behavioral and Brain Functions 2006, 2:6doi:10.1186/1744-9081-2-6

Published:	28 January 2006

Abstract

Electroencephalographic measures of information processing encompass both mid-latency evoked potentials like the pre-attentive auditory P50 potential and a host of later more cognitive components like P300 and N400.

Difference waves have mostly been employed in studies of later event related potentials but here this method along with low frequency filtering is applied exploratory on auditory P50 gating data, previously analyzed in the standard format (reported in Am J Psychiatry 2003, 160:2236-8). The exploration was motivated by the observation during visual peak detection that the AEP waveform was different in the patient group, although this was not reflected by the peak measures. The sample included un-medicated schizophrenia spectrum patients (n = 17) and healthy controls (n = 24). The patients had an attenuated difference P50. This attenuation was primarily seen in the sub-sample of patients with severe negative symptoms. The difference attenuation was due to low amplitude at the first stimulus. This suggests an abnormality in readiness more than an abnormality in gating in the patient group.