Specific Auditory Perception Impairment and Emotion Recognition in Schizophrenia

描述（由申请人提供）：精神分裂症是一种严重的行为障碍，影响了大约220万美国人，其特征是幻觉、妄想、严重的认知障碍和严重的功能障碍，如人际关系受损和就业减少。精神分裂症无法治愈，目前的治疗方法对大多数患者只能提供适度的症状缓解，并且有有害的副作用。我们现在了解到，精神分裂症患者的基本感知过程，如听觉音高处理受到损害，这或许可以解释关键的社会缺陷，如识别他人情绪的能力。这些听觉缺陷可能与与精神病症状发展相关的神经回路密切相关，因此可能是精神病发病的有用预测因子和有希望的治疗靶点。然而，由于对精神分裂症患者听觉缺陷的评估不完整，以及缺乏关于基本听觉加工缺陷与情绪加工、认知和功能能力障碍之间关系的信息，这些领域的进展受到阻碍。在这个项目中，我们将比较精神分裂症患者与健康志愿者在听觉感知测试中的综合表现，假设听觉感知缺陷

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Schizophrenia is a serious behavioral disorder affecting approximately 2.2 million Americans characterized by hallucinations, delusions, severe cognitive impairment, and severe functional disability such as impaired interpersonal relationships and reduced employment. There is no cure for schizophrenia and current treatments provide only modest symptom relief to most patients and have detrimental side effects. We now understand that basic perceptual processes, such as auditory pitch processing, are impaired in schizophrenia and may explain key social deficits such as the ability to identify emotions in other people. These auditory deficits may be closely linked to the neural circuits relevant for the development of psychotic symptoms and thus may be useful predictors of psychosis onset and promising therapeutic targets. However, progress in these areas is impeded by the incomplete assessment of auditory deficits in schizophrenia and a lack of information regarding the relationship between basic auditory processing deficits and impairments in emotional processing, cognition and functional capacity. In this project, we will compare the profile of performance on a comprehensive panel of auditory perception tests in patients with schizophrenia to healthy volunteers, hypothesizing that deficits in the perception of formant discrimination are primary. This work will allow us to establish a relationship between specific auditory processing impairments and auditory emotion perception as well as clinical and cognitive symptoms in schizophrenia. Impact: This research will provide a thorough picture of the profile of auditory deficits in schizophrenia and help explain the auditory perceptual elements of emotion recognition impairment in schizophrenia. This work may inform the development of early predictive measures and early intervention therapies with long term benefits for patients and families afflicted with these complex disorders.