Background

Manifold cognitive deficits have been reported in schizophrenia spectrum disorders, including disturbances in flexible updating to altered circumstances as well as stabilization deficits in the face of distractors. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging study, we examined the neural correlates of these deficits as two complementary components of predictive processing.

Methods

In 22 patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders and 22 healthy matched control participants, we applied a serial predictive switch-drift task to assess flexibility as successful detection of prediction-rule switches, and stability as successfully ignoring distractors (“drifts”).

Results

Patients compared with controls less reliably detected rule switches and also less efficiently inhibited drifts. A reduced striatal response to switches or drifts correlated with weaker switch-drift-discrimination in patients, suggesting impaired gating of prediction errors. The increase in activity in anterior cingulate cortex and hippocampus for detected vs. undetected switches was reduced in patients compared to controls, which may reflect impaired behavioral adaptation following prediction errors. The comparison between shielding against distractions and undetected switches showed increased activity in the inferior frontal cortex and posterior insula in controls but not in patients.

Conclusion

Our results suggest new insights into the specific disruption of predictive flexibility and stability in schizophrenia spectrum disorders, which is characterized by impaired striatal gating and inadequate cortical encoding of predictive errors.

中文翻译：

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精神分裂症谱系障碍认知灵活性和稳定性受损的大脑和行为体征

背景

在精神分裂症谱系障碍中报告了多种认知缺陷，包括对改变环境的灵活更新的障碍以及面对干扰物时的稳定性缺陷。在这项功能性磁共振成像研究中，我们将这些缺陷的神经相关性作为预测处理的两个互补组成部分进行了检查。

方法

在 22 名精神分裂症谱系障碍患者和 22 名健康匹配的对照参与者中，我们应用了一系列预测性开关漂移任务来评估成功检测预测规则开关的灵活性，以及​​成功忽略干扰因素（“漂移”）的稳定性。

结果

与对照组相比，患者检测到的规则开关不太可靠，抑制漂移的效率也较低。纹状体对开关或漂移的反应减少与患者开关漂移辨别力较弱相关，表明预测错误的门控受损。与对照组相比，患者前扣带回皮层和海马中检测到与未检测到的开关的活动增加减少，这可能反映了预测错误后行为适应受损。屏蔽干扰和未检测到的开关之间的比较显示，对照组的下额叶皮层和后岛叶的活动增加，但患者没有。

结论

我们的研究结果提出了对精神分裂症谱系障碍中预测灵活性和稳定性的特定破坏的新见解，其特征是纹状体门控受损和预测错误的皮层编码不足。