Desert Pacific Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center, Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Psychol Med. 2024 Jul;54(9):1930-1939. doi: 10.1017/S0033291724000023. Epub 2024 Jan 30.
Research using latent variable models demonstrates that pre-attentive measures of early auditory processing (EAP) and cognition may initiate a cascading effect on daily functioning in schizophrenia. However, such models fail to account for relationships among individual measures of cognition and EAP, thereby limiting their utility. Hence, EAP and cognition may function as complementary and interacting measures of brain function rather than independent stages of information processing. Here, we apply a data-driven approach to identifying directional relationships among neurophysiologic and cognitive variables.
Using data from the Consortium on the Genetics of Schizophrenia 2, we estimated Gaussian Graphical Models and Bayesian networks to examine undirected and directed connections between measures of EAP, including mismatch negativity and P3a, and cognition in 663 outpatients with schizophrenia and 630 control participants.
Chain structures emerged among EAP and attention/vigilance measures in schizophrenia and control groups. Concerning differences between the groups, object memory was an influential variable in schizophrenia upon which other cognitive domains depended, and working memory was an influential variable in controls.
Measures of EAP and attention/vigilance are conditionally independent of other cognitive domains that were used in this study. Findings also revealed additional causal assumptions among measures of cognition that could help guide statistical control and ultimately help identify early-stage targets or surrogate endpoints in schizophrenia.
使用潜在变量模型的研究表明，早期听觉处理（EAP）和认知的前注意测量可能会对精神分裂症患者的日常功能产生级联效应。然而，这些模型未能解释认知和 EAP 的个体测量值之间的关系，从而限制了它们的实用性。因此，EAP 和认知可能是大脑功能的互补和相互作用的测量指标，而不是信息处理的独立阶段。在这里，我们应用数据驱动的方法来确定神经生理和认知变量之间的定向关系。
使用来自精神分裂症遗传学联合会 2 的数据，我们估计了高斯图模型和贝叶斯网络，以检查包括失配负波和 P3a 在内的 EAP 测量值与认知之间的无向和有向连接，共有 663 名精神分裂症门诊患者和 630 名对照参与者参与了该研究。
在精神分裂症和对照组中，EAP 和注意力/警觉性测量值之间出现了链结构。关于两组之间的差异，物体记忆是精神分裂症中对其他认知领域有影响的变量，而工作记忆是对照组中具有影响力的变量。
在这项研究中使用的其他认知领域的 EAP 和注意力/警觉性测量值是条件独立的。研究结果还揭示了认知测量值之间的其他因果假设，这有助于指导统计控制，并最终有助于确定精神分裂症的早期目标或替代终点。
