Low Brain Beta-Wave Activity May Mark Schizophrenia

Reduced activity in the brain's beta waves may be a neural marker for schizophrenia, according to research involving 25 patients. Hsi Wei and colleagues found that these brain waves (which are associated with predicting what happens next) fluctuated less when patients received stimuli and undertook tasks, compared with neural activity in a control cohort of 25 volunteers. This phenomenon correlated with speech distortion and clinical severity. Identifying neural markers of schizophrenia offers a way to connect brain biology with clinical symptoms. Here, Wei et al. have discovered that the extent of change in event-related brain responses (in the beta-band frequency of 15 to 30 Hertz) in the brain's inferior frontal gyrus could be a marker for schizophrenia. Employing magnetoencephalography, the team monitored brain activity in 25 patients and 25 participant controls as they encountered audio and visual stimuli and undertook sensorimotor tasks. The beta-band activities in the brains of patients changed less in both settings, and reduced beta-band modulation also corresponded with increased clinical severity and disorganized speech in the patients. "This work provides important preliminary support for an account of perceptual and expressive dysfunction in psychosis," the authors write, noting that beta-band dynamics may signal a potential for targeted interventions.