Brain activities associated with theory of mind and attention in schizotypal adolescents and young adults: An event-related potential study

Abstract

Theory of mind and attention deficits are associated with schizophrenia- spectrum disorders. Prior brain studies focused on the clinical adult samples while the subclinical samples especially the adolescents were neglected. This present study aimed to examine the brain activities that were associated with theory of mind and attention in schizotypal adolescents and young adults. A total of 48 adolescents and young adults (31 males; mean age: 20.21 years) were recruited in the community. Participants were categorized into two groups according to their selfreported schizotypy scores: 1) schizotypy (N=16) and 2) controls (N=32). The performance accuracy and reaction time as well as the electroencephalogram (EEG) data were recorded with 64-channel Quikcap while the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) and the Auditory Oddball Task were introduced to measure participants’ theory of mind and attention. Event-related potentials (ERP) of these two tasks were extracted after EEG preprocessing using CURRY 7 and Matlab respectively. For the RMET ones, P300 amplitudes (290ms – 500ms) were extracted. Results showed that the reaction time recorded in the RMET was negatively correlated with a number of EEG components including C5, CP5, TP7, TP8, P1-8, and PO3- 8 (ps< 0.05) in the schizotypy group while these correlations were not significant in the healthy controls. For the Auditory Oddball Task, the reaction time in the high pitch condition was positively associated with various EEG components such as FP1, FPZ, and TP7 (ps< 0.05) in the schizotypy group. Findings suggested that there are differential brain activities associated with theory of mind and attention in the schizotypal adolescents and young adults from those in healthy controls. Furthermore, theory of mind ability and attention shares the same neural substrate which is the middle temporal gyrus (TP7) (subserving the visual function).