The relevance of attention in schizophrenia P50 paired stimulus studies

Abstract

Objective: P50 suppression refers to the P50 ERP amplitude-reduction to the second (S2) relative to the first (S1) of identical brief auditory stimuli (SOA = 500 ms). Its reduction in schizophrenia is argued to represent impaired inhibitory input (II) mechanisms. Enhancing attention enhances II functionality (reducing S2P50 amplitude and increasing P50 difference) in healthy subjects. We determined whether the effect of attention on P50 suppression differs between schizophrenia patients (SCZ) and controls (CON) and thus is a confound in P50 schizophrenia research. Methods: We manipulated the direction of attention (attention, non-attention) in 21 SCZ and 18 CON in the P50 suppression task. R..