The mismatch negativity: an index of cognitive decline in neuropsychiatric and neurological diseases and in ageing

• Published in: Brain (London, England : 1878) England : 1878), 2011-12, Vol.134 (12), p.3432-3450
• Main Authors: Näätänen, Risto, Kujala, Teija, Kreegipuu, Kairi, Carlson, Synnöve, Escera, Carles, Baldeweg, Torsten, Ponton, Curtis
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aging - physiology; Auditory Cortex - physiopathology; Auditory Perception - physiology; Biological and medical sciences; Cognition Disorders - physiopathology; Degenerative and inherited degenerative diseases of the nervous system. Leukodystrophies. Prion diseases; Evoked Potentials, Auditory - physiology; Frontal Lobe - physiopathology; Humans; Medical sciences; Mental Disorders - physiopathology; Nervous System Diseases - physiopathology; Neurology
• ISSN: 0006-8950; 1460-2156
• DOI: 10.1093/brain/awr064

Cognitive impairment is a core element shared by a large number of different neurological and neuropsychiatric diseases. Irrespective of their different aetiologies and symptomatologies, most appear to converge at the functional deficiency of the auditory-frontal cortex network of auditory discrimination, which indexes cognitive impairment shared by these abnormalities. This auditory-frontal cortical deficiency, and hence cognitive decline, can now be objectively measured with the mismatch negativity and its magnetic equivalent. The auditory-frontal cortical network involved seems, therefore, to play a pivotal, unifying role in the different abnormalities. It is, however, more likely that the dysfunction that can be detected with the mismatch negativity and its magnetoencephalographic equivalent manifests a more widespread brain disorder, namely, a deficient N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor function, shared by these abnormalities and accounting for most of the cognitive decline.