Schizophrenia is a complex and disabling mental disorder estimated to
affect 21million people worldwide. Electroencephalography (EEG) has proven to
be an excellent tool to improve and aid the current diagnosis of mental disorders
such as schizophrenia. The illness is comprised of various disabilities associated
with sensory processing and perception. In this work, the first 10−200 ms of
brain activity after the self-generation via button presses (condition 1) and passive
presentation (condition 2) of auditory stimuli was addressed. A time-domain
analysis of the event-related potentials (ERPs), specifically the MLAEP, N1, and
P2 components, was conducted on 49 schizophrenic patients (SZ) and 32 healthy
controls (HC), provided by a public dataset. The amplitudes, latencies, and scalp
distribution of the peaks were used to compare groups. Suppression, measured as
the difference between both conditions’ neural activity, was also evaluated. With
the exception of the N1 peak during condition (1), patients exhibited significantly
reduced amplitudes in all waveforms analyzed in both conditions. The SZ group
also demonstrated a peak delay in theMLAEP during condition (2) and amodestly
earlier P2 peak during condition (1). Furthermore, patients exhibited less andmore
N1 and P2 suppression, respectively. Finally, the spatial distribution of activity in
the scalp during the MLAEP peak in both conditions, N1 peak in condition (1)
and N1 suppression differed considerably between groups. These findings and
measurements will be used with the finality of developing an intelligent system
capable of accurately diagnosing schizophrenia.
This article is a result of the project “GreenHealth - Digital strategies in biological assets to improve well-being and promote green health” (Norte-01-0145-FEDER-000042), supported by Norte Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 PartnershipAgreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
