Left Temporal Lobe Dysfunction in Schizophrenia

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Abstract
EVENT-RELATED potentials (ERPs) measure brain electrical activity that is time-locked to the onset of stimuli in cognitive tasks and can therefore provide unique information about neurophysiologic processes underlying cognitive dysfunctions in schizophrenia.1 The task used in most studies is a simple target detection (oddball) task, in which an infrequent target tone is intermixed with frequent nontarget tones. Event-related potential components that occur at different latencies after onset of the target tones reflect the sequence of information processing, beginning with early sensory processing, as reflected by a negative N1 component peaking at about 100 milliseconds. Initial stimulus classification is indexed by a negative N2 component peaking at about 200 milliseconds. Later stages of cognitive processing (eg, stimulus evaluation) are reflected in the late-positive (LP) complex, which consists of overlapping subcomponents, including the well-known P3 component. Amplitudes of these ERP components generally have been found to be reduced in patients with schizophrenia when compared with healthy controls.2-10