Psychology, School of Natural Sciences, University of Stirling Stirling, UK ; Theoretical Neuroscience, Frankfurt Institute of Advanced Studies Frankfurt, Germany.
Front Psychol. 2013 May 29;4:307. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00307. eCollection 2013.
There is rapidly growing evidence that schizophrenia involves changes in context-sensitive gain-control and probabilistic inference. In addition to the well-known cognitive disorganization to which these changes lead, basic aspects of vision are also impaired, as discussed by other papers on this Frontiers Research Topic. The aim of this paper is to contribute to our understanding of such findings by examining five central hypotheses. First, context-sensitive gain-control is fundamental to brain function and mental life. Second, it occurs in many different regions of the cerebral cortex of many different mammalian species. Third, it has several computational functions, each with wide generality. Fourth, it is implemented by several neural mechanisms at cellular and circuit levels. Fifth, impairments of context-sensitive gain-control produce many of the well-known symptoms of schizophrenia and change basic processes of visual perception. These hypotheses suggest why disorders of vision in schizophrenia may provide insights into the nature and mechanisms of impaired reality testing and thought disorder in psychosis. They may also cast light on normal mental function and its neural bases. Limitations of these hypotheses, and ways in which they need further testing and development, are outlined.
越来越多的证据表明，精神分裂症涉及上下文敏感增益控制和概率推理的变化。除了这些变化导致的众所周知的认知紊乱外，正如本前沿研究课题的其他论文所讨论的，视觉的基本方面也受到了损害。本文的目的是通过检验五个核心假设来帮助我们理解这些发现。首先，上下文敏感增益控制是大脑功能和精神生活的基础。其次，它发生在许多不同的哺乳动物物种的大脑皮层的许多不同区域。第三，它具有几个计算功能，每个功能都具有广泛的通用性。第四，它是通过细胞和电路水平的几个神经机制来实现的。第五，上下文敏感增益控制的障碍会产生许多众所周知的精神分裂症症状，并改变视觉感知的基本过程。这些假设说明了为什么精神分裂症中的视力障碍可能为理解现实检验和精神错乱中的思维障碍的性质和机制提供了线索。它们也可能揭示了正常的心理功能及其神经基础。本文概述了这些假设的局限性，以及它们需要进一步测试和发展的方式。
