EEG/ERP Measures of Attention and Cognitive Control During New Auditory WM Tasks

 描述（由申请人提供）：该R21申请旨在开发新的听觉工作记忆（WM）范式，这在精神分裂症（SZ）患者的认知功能研究中具有特殊价值。当与事件相关电位（ERP）和事件相关振荡（ERO）EEG测量一起使用时，它将为感知，注意和认知控制过程对WM缺陷的贡献提供新的见解。虽然有相当大的共识，WM是一个核心的认知缺陷，在深圳，很少有研究使用听觉测试和知之甚少的认知和神经生理过程中涉及这些赤字。现有的用于评估WM的神经心理学测试经常混淆几个认知过程，并且不能提供关于缺陷是否与记忆，注意力或认知控制有关的见解。听觉工作记忆测试，使用忽略/抑制任务结合ERP和ERO，将产生关键信息的作用，知觉的“自下而上”和“自上而下”的注意或抑制控制过程中的工作记忆。将在WM中信息的编码、维持和检索期间记录EEG，这是评价行为缺陷与感觉/注意力处理、信息维持或记忆检索障碍相关程度的理想方法。本研究采用两种不同的测验来评估选择性注意和抑制性控制对听觉工作记忆的影响：（1）忽略测验，即被试选择性地注意一只耳朵听到的字母而忽略另一只耳朵听到的字母; 抑制测试，其中受试者选择性地抑制WM中的项目（即，一只耳朵听的信）。关键线索在编码序列之前（忽略）或之后（抑制）提供，允许人们分离相关的注意/认知控制过程及其与持续ERP活动和事件相关的中额叶θ的关系。有三种类型的识别探针，有效（关注的耳朵），诱饵（无关的耳朵），或控制（不 在审判中提出）。关键的比较是在控制和引诱之间，由于主动干扰，后者在抑制任务中产生更大的入侵成本（增加RT）。这些测试也是评估行为和早期ERP缺陷（如N1）受选择性注意影响的程度以及向左半球或右半球偏侧化的理想方法。我们的具体目标是：（1）在这些听觉忽略/抑制测试期间测量40名健康对照的ERP和ERO;（2）确定和细化与感知、注意和认知控制过程相关的特定ERP和ERO测量;（3）评估这些测试中的行为和ERP/ERO测量的心理测量学特性（即，（4）对20名SZ患者进行测试，以确定在患者中应用这些测试的可行性，并提供评估 自下而上和自上而下的过程潜在的听觉工作记忆缺陷的SZ。这些测试也将在临床试验中对开发和评估改善认知能力的新疗法具有价值。 在SZ患者中的功能。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This R21 application aims to develop new auditory working memory (WM) paradigms, which would be of particular value in studies of cognitive function in patients having schizophrenia (SZ). When used with event-related potential (ERP) and event-related oscillation (ERO) EEG measures, it will provide new insights into the contribution of perceptual, attentional, and cognitive control processes to WM deficits. Although there is considerable agreement that WM is a core cognitive deficit in SZ, few studies have used auditory tests and little is known about the cognitive and neurophysiological processes involved in these deficits. Existing neuropsychological tests for assessing WM often confound several cognitive processes and provide no insight as to whether a deficit is related to memory, attention or cognitive control. The auditory WM tests, which use Ignore/Suppress tasks in conjunction with ERPs and EROs, will yield critical information on the role of perceptual "bottom-up" and "top-down" attention or inhibitory control processes in WM. EEG will be recorded during the encoding, maintenance, and retrieval of information in WM, which is ideal for evaluating the extent to which behavioral deficits are related to disturbance in sensory/attention processing, maintenance of information, or memory retrieval. Two different tests are used to assess the impact of selective attention and inhibitory control on auditory WM: (1) Ignore test, in which the subject selectively attends to letters presented to one ear and ignores those in the other ear; (2) Suppress test, in which the subject selectively suppresses items in WM (i.e., letters that were presented to one ear). The critical cue is provided either before (Ignore) or after (Suppress) the encoding series, allowing one to dissociate the associated attentional/cognitive control processes and their relation to sustained ERP activity and event-related mid-frontal theta. There are three types of recognition probes, valid (attended ear), lure (irrelevant ear), or control (not presented on trial). The critical comparison is between control and lure, the latter incurring greater intrusion costs (increased RTs) in the Suppress task due to proactive interference. These tests are also ideal for evaluating the extent to which behavioral and early ERP deficits, such as N1, are influenced by selective attention and are lateralized to the right or left hemisphere. Specifically we aim: (1) to measure ERPs and EROs of 40 healthy controls during these auditory Ignore/Suppress tests; (2) determine and refine specific ERP and ERO measures that relate to perceptual, attentional and cognitive control processes; (3) to evaluate the psychometric properties of behavioral and ERP/ERO measures in these tests (i.e., test-retest reliability and internal consistency); (4) to test a sample of 20 SZ patients so as determine feasibility of applying these tests in patients and provide preliminary data evaluating the role of bottom-up and top-down processes underlying auditory WM deficits in SZ. These tests will also be of value in clinical trials for developing and evaluating new treatments for improving cognitive function in patients having SZ.