Mismatch negativity: clinical research and possible applications

doi:10.1016/S0167-8760(03)00053-9

International Journal of Psychophysiology

Volume 48, Issue 2, May 2003, Pages 179-188

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0167-8760(03)00053-9 Get rights and content

Abstract

This article provides a selective review on the perspectives of the clinical research and application of the mismatch negativity (MMN), a component of the auditory event-related potential generated by the brain's automatic response to any discriminable change in auditory stimulation. The MMN (and its magnetic equivalent MMNm) currently provide the only objective measure of auditory discrimination and sensory memory. It can be registered in the absence of attention and with no task requirements, which makes it particularly suitable for studying different clinical populations and infants.

Section snippets

The mismatch negativity: an introduction

The mismatch negativity (MMN: Näätänen et al., 1978), which can also be measured magnetically (MMNm), is an electric brain response (a negative component of the event-related potential, (ERP)) to any discriminable change (‘deviant’) in some repetitive aspect of auditory stimulation (‘standard’). Importantly, the MMN can be elicited even in the absence of attention, with the most dramatic demonstrations being provided by MMNs recorded in comatose patients (Kane et al., 1993, Kane et al., 1996,

MMN in pediatry and neuropediatry

One potential field of application of the MMN involves newborns and young infants (for a review, see Kraus and Cheour, 2000). Alho et al. (1990) were the first to record an MMN in newborns. Their standard stimuli were tones of 1000 Hz and deviant stimuli tones of 1200 Hz. During the recording, the newborns were sleeping. Interestingly, this MMN was elicited by vowel change, i.e., acoustically quite a modest change. Furthermore, Cheour-Luhtanen et al. (1996) found an MMN even in prematurely born

MMN and developmental disorders

The MMN has recently been used to study phonological and auditory dysfunctions in dyslexia. For example, Schulte-Körne et al. (1998) used the MMN to compare the discrimination of speech and non-speech stimuli in dyslexic and control adolescents. Their speech stimuli were syllables (/da/ as the standard stimulus and /ba/ as the deviant stimulus) and their non-speech stimuli sine-wave tones. It was found that the MMNs for the tone stimuli did not differ between the two groups, whereas the

Psychiatry

One of the most interesting clinical research lines using the MMN involves schizophrenia. Since the initial finding of Shelley et al., (1991), the majority of these studies have shown a considerably attenuated MMN in schizophrenic patients (for a review, see Michie, 2001). These results mainly involve MMNs to sound-duration and -frequency changes (Michie et al., 2000a), with other types of sound changes being used only seldom. Since this abnormality is similarly found both with long and short

Neurology

Early studies (Czigler et al., 1992, Woods et al., 1991) on the aging effects on the MMN amplitude suggested that this amplitude is reduced with aging. In a subsequent study, Pekkonen et al. (1993) found that with frequency change, this effect was confined to conditions with long ISIs, suggesting that it is not perception but rather sensory memory for auditory frequency that is affected by aging. Consistent with this, more recently, Pekkonen et al. (1996) observed that when the ISI was 0.5 s,

Acknowledgements

Special Didactic Lecture delivered at the 11th World Congress of Psychophysiology, the Olympics of the Brain, Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the International Organization of Psychophysiology, associated with the United Nations (New York), July 29–August 3, 2002, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

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Multi-feature mismatch negativity: How can reliable data be recorded in a short time?
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Citation Excerpt :
Generally, MMN peaks at 150–250 ms with an amplitude between 2 and 5 mV in adults (Näätänen et al., 1989, Näätänen et al., 2007, Tiitinen et al., 1994). Central auditory system function is objectively evaluated with MMN in the case of many clinical disorders including schizophrenia, dyslexia, coma, paralysis, aphasia, specific language disorders, aging, multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, epilepsy, and autism (Baldeweg et al., 2004, Cooper et al., 2006, Näätänen, 2003, O’connor, 2012, Pettigrew et al., 2005, Shinozaki et al., 2002). Moreover, it can also be utilized in evaluations of the benefit of amplification, auditory processing disorders, and different aspects of language as well as in the perception of signals at the cortical level and evaluations of neural plasticity in children and adults with impaired speech perception (Näätänen, 2003).
The aim of the study was to conduct multi-feature mismatch negativity (MMN) implementations and identify via a test–retest study the reliability of MMN responses obtained through a 5-stimulus version of the MMN paradigm. It was also aimed to identify a reliable MMN recording number by comparing the MMN responses obtained under conditions of ten and four recordings conditions while making the recording time shorter.
Twenty-one healthy volunteers, aged between 18 and 36 years, were included in the study. A 5-stimulus version of the multi-feature MMN paradigm was presented to participants. Ten recordings were obtained for each participant under both test and retest conditions. The MATLAB program was utilized in the evaluation of MMN amplitude and latency. The Fz was chosen for the statistical analysis. Four of the ten recordings were chosen at random, and statistical analyses were performed again for those four recordings.
There was no statistically significant difference in amplitudes obtained from test and retest conditions with ten recordings. With four recordings, for frequency, intensity, duration, and gap deviants, there were no statistically significant differences between amplitudes obtained under test and retest conditions. However, there was a statistically significant difference between amplitudes of the location deviant. No statistically significant difference was observed among latencies under test–retest conditions with both ten and four recordings.
These findings demonstrate that MMN amplitudes could be used reliably as short-time evaluations with four recordings, but more recordings are required for MMN latencies. In terms of practicality, four recordings are more advantageous and comfortable for both clinicians and patients in MMN practice.
When behavioral tests are required, MMN is regarded as an objective test that can be used reliably for adults, children, and infants who cannot be evaluated using behavioral methods. It is concluded that conditions with four recordings are more advantageous and comfortable for both clinicians and patients in MMN practice.
Adjuvant electroconvulsive therapy with antipsychotics is associated with improvement in auditory mismatch negativity in schizophrenia
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Patients with schizophrenia exhibit impaired performance in tone-matching or voice discrimination tests. However, there is no animal model recapitulating these pathophysiological traits. Here, we tested the representation of auditory recognition deficits in an animal model of schizophrenia. We established a rat model for schizophrenia using a perinatal challenge of epidermal growth factor (EGF), exposed adult rats to 55 kHz sine tones, rat calls (50−60 kHz), or reversely played calls, analyzed electrocorticography (ECoG) of the auditory and frontal cortices. Grand averages of event-related responses (ERPs) in the auditory cortex showed between-group size differences in the P1 component, whereas the P2 component differed among sound stimulus types. In EGF model rats, gamma band amplitudes were decreased in the auditory cortex and were enhanced in the frontal cortex with sine stimulus. The model rats also exhibited a reduction in rat call-triggered intercortical phase synchrony in the beta range. Risperidone administration restored normal phase synchrony. These findings suggest that perinatal exposure to the cytokine impairs tone/call recognition processes in these neocortices. In conjunction with previous studies using this model, our findings indicate that perturbations in ErbB/EGF signaling during development exert a multiscale impact on auditory functions at the cellular, circuit, and cognitive levels.
Prediction under uncertainty: Dissociating sensory from cognitive expectations in highly uncertain musical contexts
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Predictive models in the brain rely on the continuous extraction of regularities from the environment. These models are thought to be updated by novel information, as reflected in prediction error responses such as the mismatch negativity (MMN). However, although in real life individuals often face situations in which uncertainty prevails, it remains unclear whether and how predictive models emerge in high-uncertainty contexts. Recent research suggests that uncertainty affects the magnitude of MMN responses in the context of music listening. However, musical predictions are typically studied with MMN stimulation paradigms based on Western tonal music, which are characterized by relatively high predictability. Hence, we developed an MMN paradigm to investigate how the high uncertainty of atonal music modulates predictive processes as indexed by the MMN and behavior. Using MEG in a group of 20 subjects without musical training, we demonstrate that the magnetic MMN in response to pitch, intensity, timbre, and location deviants is evoked in both tonal and atonal melodies, with no significant differences between conditions. In contrast, in a separate behavioral experiment involving 39 non-musicians, participants detected pitch deviants more accurately and rated confidence higher in the tonal than in the atonal musical context. These results indicate that contextual tonal uncertainty modulates processing stages in which conscious awareness is involved, although deviants robustly elicit low-level pre-attentive responses such as the MMN. The achievement of robust MMN responses, despite high tonal uncertainty, is relevant for future studies comparing groups of listeners’ MMN responses to increasingly ecological music stimuli.
Cerebral representation of sequence patterns across multiple presentation formats
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Citation Excerpt :
Spontaneous learning of sequence regularities and associated expectations can be evidenced by observing the novelty responses triggered when these regularities are violated. The mismatch negativity (MMN), for instance, is observed when the repeated presentation of a “standard” sound stimulus is suddenly disrupted by the presentation of a different sound stimulus (Näätänen, 2003; Näätänen, Paavilainen, Rinne, & Alho, 2007). Human sequence knowledge, however, goes way beyond the learning that a single stimulus is repeated with a specific timing, and extends to the encoding and manipulation of temporal sequences with a complex structure (Amalric et al., 2017; Bekinschtein et al., 2009; Planton et al., 2021; Wang, Uhrig, Jarraya, & Dehaene, 2015).
The ability to detect the abstract pattern underlying a temporal sequence of events is crucial to many human activities, including language and mathematics, but its cortical correlates remain poorly understood. It is also unclear whether repeated exposure to the same sequence of sensory stimuli is sufficient to induce the encoding of an abstract amodal representation of the pattern. Using functional MRI, we probed the existence of such abstract codes for sequential patterns, their localization in the human brain, and their relation to existing language and math-responsive networks. We used a passive sequence violation paradigm, in which a given sequence is repeatedly presented before rare deviant sequences are introduced. We presented two binary patterns, AABB and ABAB, in four presentation formats, either visual or auditory, and either cued by the identity of the stimuli or by their spatial location. Regardless of the presentation format, a habituation to the repeated pattern and a response to pattern violations were seen in a set of inferior frontal, intraparietal and temporal areas. Within language areas, such pattern-violation responses were only found in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), whereas all math-responsive regions responded to pattern changes. Most of these regions also responded whenever the modality or the cue changed, suggesting a general sensitivity to violation detection. Thus, the representation of sequence patterns appears to be distributed, yet to include a core set of abstract amodal regions, particularly the IFG.
The lateralization and reliability of spatial mismatch negativity elicited by auditory deviants with virtual spatial location
2021, International Journal of Psychophysiology
Mismatch negativity (MMN) is an intensively studied event-related potential component that reflects pre-attentive auditory processing. Existing spatial MMN (sMMN) studies usually use loud-speakers in different locations or deliver sound with binaural localization cues through earphones to elicit MMN, which either was practically complicated or sounded unnatural to the subjects. In the present study, we generated head related transfer function (HRTF)-based spatial sounds and verified that the HRTF-based sounds retained the left and the right spatial localization cues. We further used them as deviants to elicit sMMN with conventional oddball paradigm. Results showed that sMMN was successfully elicited by the HRTF-based deviants in 18 of 21 healthy subjects in two separate sessions. Furthermore, the left deviants elicited higher sMMN amplitudes in the right hemisphere compared to the left hemisphere, while the right deviants elicited sMMN with similar amplitudes in both hemispheres, which supports a combination of contralateral and right-hemispheric dominance in spatial auditory information processing. In addition, the sMMN in response to the right deviants showed good test-retest reliability, while the sMMN in response to the left deviants had weak test-retest reliability. These findings implicate that HRTF-based sMMN could be a robust paradigm to investigate spatial localization and discrimination abilities.

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View full text

Mismatch negativity: clinical research and possible applications

Abstract

Section snippets

The mismatch negativity: an introduction

MMN in pediatry and neuropediatry

MMN and developmental disorders

Psychiatry

Neurology

Acknowledgements

Electroencephalogr. Clin. Neuropsychol.

Int. J. Psychophysiol.

Electroencephalogr. Clin. Neuropsychol.

Biol. Psychol.

Clin. Neurophysiol.

Neurosci. Lett.

Lancet

Clin. Neurophysiol.

Int. J. Psychophysiol.

Acta Psychologica

Biol. Psychol.

Electroencephalogr. Clin. Neurophysiol.

Electroencephalogr. Clin. Neurophysiol.

NeuroImage

Schizophr. Res.

Biol. Psychiatr.

Biol. Psychol.

Brain Lang

Neurosci. Lett.

Acute and chronic effects of alcohol on preattentive auditory processing as reflected by mismatch negativity

Audiol. Neuro-Otol.

Cerebral generators of mismatch negativity (MMN) and its magnetic counterpart (MMNm) elicited by sound changes

Ear Hearing

Effects of involuntary auditory attention on visual task performance and brain activity

NeuroReport

Impaired auditory frequency discrimination in dyslexia detected with mismatch evoked potentials

Ann. Neurol.

Brain potential evidence for an auditory sensory memory deficit in schizophrenia

Am. J. Psychiatr.

Mismatch negativity (MMN) as an index of auditory sensory memory deficit in cleft-palate and catch-syndrome children

NeuroReport

The ontogenetically earliest discriminative response of the human brain

Psychophysiol. Special Report

On short and long auditory stores

Psychol. Bull.

The evidence for a temporal processing deficit linked to dyslexia: a review

Psychon. Bull. Rev.

Evidence for aberrant auditory anatomy in developmental dyslexia

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA

Separate representation of stimulus frequency, intensity and duration in auditory sensory memory: an event-related potential and dipole-model analysis

J. Cog. Neurosci.

Brain generators implicated in processing of auditory stimulus deviance: a topographic event-related potential study

Psychophysiology

Low dose of ethanol suppresses mismatch negativity of auditory event-related potentials

Alcohol.: Clin. Exp. Res.

Intracortical mechanisms of mismatch negativity dysfunction in schizophrenia

Audiol. Neuro-Otol.

Impaired precision, but normal retention, of auditory sensory (‘echoic’) memory information in schizophrenia

J. Abnorm. Psychol.

Impaired mismatch negativity (MMN) generation in schizophrenia as a function of stimulus deviance, probability, and interstimulus/interdeviant interval

Electroencephalogr. Clin. Neurophysiol.