Lechner Stephan, Northoff Georg
The Royal's Institute of Mental Health Research, Brain and Mind Research Institute, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON K1Z 7K4, Canada.
Research Group Neuroinformatics, Faculty of Computer Science, University of Vienna, 1010 Vienna, Austria.
Brain Sci. 2023 Apr 21;13(4):695. doi: 10.3390/brainsci13040695.
Input processing in the brain is mediated by phase synchronization and intrinsic neural timescales, both of which have been implicated in schizophrenia. Their relationship remains unclear, though. Recruiting a schizophrenia EEG sample from the B-SNIP consortium dataset ( = 134, 70 schizophrenia patients, 64 controls), we investigate phase synchronization, as measured by intertrial phase coherence (ITPC), and intrinsic neural timescales, as measured by the autocorrelation window (ACW) during both the rest and oddball-task states. The main goal of our paper was to investigate whether reported shifts from shorter to longer timescales are related to decreased ITPC. Our findings show (i) decreases in both theta and alpha ITPC in response to both standard and deviant tones; and (iii) a negative correlation of ITPC and ACW in healthy subjects while such correlation is no longer present in SCZ participants. Together, we demonstrate evidence of abnormally long intrinsic neural timescales (ACW) in resting-state EEG of schizophrenia as well as their dissociation from phase synchronization (ITPC). Our data suggest that, during input processing, the resting state's abnormally long intrinsic neural timescales tilt the balance of temporal segregation and integration towards the latter. That results in temporal imprecision with decreased phase synchronization in response to inputs. Our findings provide further evidence for a basic temporal disturbance in schizophrenia on the different timescales (longer ACW and shorter ITPC), which, in the future, might be able to explain common symptoms related to the temporal experience in schizophrenia, for example temporal fragmentation.
大脑中的输入处理由相位同步和内在神经时间尺度介导，这两者都与精神分裂症有关。然而，它们之间的关系仍不清楚。我们从B-SNIP联盟数据集中招募了一个精神分裂症脑电图样本（n = 134，70名精神分裂症患者，64名对照），研究了在静息状态和oddball任务状态下，通过试间相位相干性（ITPC）测量的相位同步，以及通过自相关窗口（ACW）测量的内在神经时间尺度。我们论文的主要目标是研究报告的从较短时间尺度到较长时间尺度的转变是否与ITPC降低有关。我们的研究结果表明：（i）无论是标准音还是偏差音，θ波和α波的ITPC均降低；（iii）健康受试者中ITPC与ACW呈负相关，而在精神分裂症患者中这种相关性不再存在。我们共同证明了精神分裂症静息态脑电图中存在异常长的内在神经时间尺度（ACW），以及它们与相位同步（ITPC）的分离。我们的数据表明，在输入处理过程中，静息状态下异常长的内在神经时间尺度将时间分离和整合的平衡倾向于后者。这导致了时间精度下降，对输入的相位同步降低。我们的研究结果为精神分裂症在不同时间尺度上存在基本的时间紊乱提供了进一步的证据（较长的ACW和较短的ITPC），未来这可能能够解释与精神分裂症时间体验相关的常见症状，例如时间碎片化。
