A Novel Technique to Trigger High Beta and Low Gamma Activity in Patients with Schizophrenia

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between resting state and auditory-motor task electroencephalogram beta and gamma distribution in healthy subjects and subjects with schizophrenia. First, we looked to changes in the resting state EEG distribution in three healthy subjects and in three patients with schizophrenia. We also analyzed high-beta and gamma cortical activity from high-density EEG during a cognitively-driven auditory-motor task in two participants, one normal subject and one diagnosed with schizophrenia. For the auditory-motor task, we asked the participants to press a button using the thumb of both hands independently, during two three-minute sessions. Resting state EEG showed more fragmentation in schizophrenia patients when compared with the healthy participants. During the auditory-motor task, we observed increased cortical fragmentation and clustering during the hand response in the patient and healthy control compared with a resting state EEG. The fragmentation remains stable during both hand response time and reference period located between the command “press” and “do not press” suggesting that this task activates a network which remains similar during the entire task.