The effect of distracting noise on the neuronal mechanisms of attention in schizophrenia

• Published in: Schizophrenia research 2012-12, Vol.142 (1), p.230-236
• Main Authors: Tregellas, Jason R, Smucny, Jason, Eichman, Lindsay, Rojas, Donald C
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acoustic Stimulation; Adult; Adult and adolescent clinical studies; Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity - etiology; Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity - pathology; Biological and medical sciences; Brain - blood supply; Brain Mapping; Distraction; Female; fMRI; Hippocampus; Humans; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Medical sciences; Middle Aged; Noise - adverse effects; Outpatients; Oxygen; Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Psychoses; Schizophrenia; Schizophrenia - complications; Sensory processing; Young Adult
• ISSN: 0920-9964; 1573-2509
• DOI: 10.1016/j.schres.2012.09.008

Abstract Objective The inability to ignore irrelevant environmental noise is a common problem for people with schizophrenia. The purpose of this study was to determine if the neuronal response to distracting noise is related to mechanisms of altered attention observed in the illness. Method Twenty-two outpatients with schizophrenia and seventeen healthy comparison subjects performed a selective attention task in the presence or absence of distracting environmental noise while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging at 3 T. A separate condition examining passive response to the distracting noise also was included. Results Group differences in neuronal response during the attention task were magnified by distracting noise, with the greatest difference being less response by patients, relative to comparison subjects, in the temporoparietal junction. Separate passive listening to distracting noise resulted in greater hippocampal response in patients, relative to comparison subjects. Across all subjects, hippocampal response to noise was inversely related to the degree to which the attention-task-related network was up-regulated to perform the task during distracting noise. Conclusions Given the observed hippocampal hyperactivity in response to environmental noise in patients and the inverse relationship between hippocampal response to noise and the effects of noise on the task-related network, hippocampal hyperactivity may contribute to impaired recruitment of attention networks in schizophrenia.