Are oscillatory brain responses generally reduced in schizophrenia during long sustained attentional processing?

Deficits in sustained attention and vigilance were assessed for oscillatory delta, theta, alpha, and gamma EEG activity during an auditory continuous performance task in patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls by quantifying peak-to-peak amplitudes of averaged and single-trial data. Averaged data indicated significantly reduced amplitudes in schizophrenia patients in all analyzed frequency bands, mainly at anterior locations. Single-trial analysis suggested that the amplitude reductions observed in the averaged delta, theta, and alpha response in patients originated from increased inter-trial phase variability. Gamma activity maximum amplitudes were reduced at the single-trial level. The findings imply that EEG activity in patients with schizophrenia can be characterized by multiple deficits in oscillatory networks, which indicates a disturbance in the temporal integration and interaction of all frequency components and their inter-trial variability.