Neural Markers of Errors as Endophenotypes in Neuropsychiatric Disorders

Abstract

Learning from errors is fundamental to adaptive human behavior. It requires detecting errors, evaluating what went wrong, and adjusting behavior accordingly. These dynamic adjustments are at the heart of behavioral flexibility and accumulating evidence, suggests that deficient error processing contributes to maladaptive rigid and repetitive behavior in a range of neuropsychiatric disorders. Neuroimaging and electrophysiological studies reveal highly reliable neural markers of error processing. In this review, we evaluate the evidence that abnormalities in these neural markers can serve as sensitive endophenotypes of neuropsychiatric disorders. We describe the behavioral and neural hallmarks of error processing, their mediation by common genetic polymorphisms, and impairments in schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and autism spectrum disorders. We conclude that neural markers of errors meet several important criteria as endophenotypes including heritability, established neuroanatomical and neurochemical substrates, association with neuropsychiatric disorders, presence in syndromally unaffected family members, and evidence of genetic mediation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)