Hemispheric differences on auditory evoked response suppression in schizophrenia

USING binaural stimuli, schizophrenia subjects have worse auditory evoked response (AER) suppression than normals in a paired-click paradigm. In this study we investigated hemispheric differences in AER suppression between groups using monaural and binaural stimulus presentation. Auditory evoked responses from 12 schizophrenia and 12 normal subjects were recorded with a 148-channel whole-head biomagnetometer. One hundred and twenty pairs of clicks were presented in three counterbalanced blocks (left, right, binaural). With monaural stimuli, patients had worse M100 suppression than normals in ipsilateral (effect size -2.13) but not in contralateral hemisphere (effect size -0.43). The groups did not differ on gamma band response suppression. Overall, the best group separations were obtained with binaural stimulus presentation on M100 suppression (effect size -4.14). (C) 1999 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.