Macroscopic fast neuronal oscillations and synchrony in schizophrenia
- Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599
The study reported by Spencer et al. (1) in a recent issue of PNAS is part of a growing body of evidence (see review in ref. 2) for abnormalities in γ band (≈30- to 70-Hz) oscillations and synchronization in the electroencephalograms (EEG) of patients with schizophrenia. The authors assessed γ band activity while subjects with schizophrenia and healthy comparison subjects perceived and responded to visual Gestalt stimuli (i.e., the presence or absence of an illusory square). The results showed that the perception of the Gestalt stimuli was associated with synchronized γ band oscillations at occipital scalp electrodes that (i) occurred in a lower frequency range in individuals with schizophrenia than in comparison subjects, (ii) correlated with reaction time, and (iii) correlated with clinical symptoms within the patient group. Because γ band synchronization is commonly believed to represent a fundamental neural mechanism by which the brain transiently integrates, or “binds,” different visual features into a unified meaningful perceptual function (3, 4), the authors concluded that impaired brain integration is a core pathophysiological feature of schizophrenia. These results confirm and extend results of previous studies of this research group (5, 6) and add to the evidence from postmortem neuropathological (7) and neuroimaging (8, 9) studies indicating that schizophrenia is characterized by impaired anatomical and functional connectivity of neural circuits.
Research of γ Band Activity in Schizophrenia: Conceptual and Interpretative Issues
This study (1) and …
