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Visual contrast sensitivity alterations in inferred magnocellular pathways and anomalous perceptual experiences in people at high-risk for psychosis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2007

SZABOLCS KÉRI  and
GYÖRGY BENEDEK
SZABOLCS KÉRI
Affiliation:
Semmelweis University, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Budapest, Hungary
GYÖRGY BENEDEK
Affiliation:
University of Szeged, Department of Physiology, Szeged, Hungary
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Abstract

Evidence suggests that patients with schizophrenia show impaired performances on tests assessing the magnocellular (M) visual pathway. The aim of this study was to investigate M pathway functioning in persons at high-risk of psychosis. Sixteen high-risk persons at the prodromal phase of psychosis and 20 healthy controls participated. Two types of contrast sensitivity measurements were used, during which participants were asked to detect a briefly presented target Gabor patch. In the pulsed-pedestal paradigm, the luminance of the background field was decreased to saturate M pathways and to bias information processing to parvocellular (P) pathways. In the steady-pedestal paradigm, the luminance of the background field was constant and briefly presented targets were processed by the M pathway. Anomalous perceptual experiences were assessed using the Structured Interview for Assessing Perceptual Anomalies (SIAPA). Results revealed that the high-risk persons showed elevated contrast sensitivity during the M pathway test, and normal sensitivity during the P pathway test. The visual SIAPA scores showed significant positive correlations with the M pathway sensitivity values. These results suggest that the high-risk mental state is associated with hyper-reactive M pathways, which may be responsible for some anomalous perceptual experiences, including abnormal intensity of environmental stimuli, feelings of being flooded and inundated, and inability to focus attention to relevant details.

Keywords

SchizophreniaHigh-risk mental stateProdromeVisual perceptionMagnocellular pathwaysContrast sensitivity
Type
Research Article
Information
Visual Neuroscience , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , March 2007 , pp. 183 - 189
Copyright
2007 Cambridge University Press

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