Analysis of Functional Connectivity During an Auditory Oddball Task in Schizophrenia

The aim of this study was to evaluate neural coupling patterns in schizophrenia (SCH) patients and healthy controls during an auditory oddball task. Two measures of functional connectivity were applied to 28 SCH patients and 51 healthy controls to characterize electroencephalographic (EEG) activity. Specifically, magnitude squared coherence (MSC) and the imaginary part of coherency (ICOH) were computed for five frequency bands: theta, alpha, beta-1, beta-2 and gamma. The results showed a statistically significant modulation increase in MSC and ICOH for controls with respect to SCH in the theta band, and a decrease in ICOH for the beta-2 band. Furthermore, controls showed more significant changes from the baseline and active task windows than SCH patients. Our findings suggest that SCH patients show coupling abnormalities during an auditory oddball task compared to healthy controls.