Impaired Sensory Processing During Low-Oxygen Exposure: A Noninvasive Approach to Detecting Changes in Cognitive States
Open Access
- 31 January 2020
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Frontiers Media SA in Frontiers in Psychiatry
- Vol. 11, 12
- https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00012
Abstract
The ability to detect novelty in our environment is a critical sensory function. A reliable set of event-related potentials (ERP), known as the auditory deviance response (ADR), are elicited in the absence of directed attention and indexes functionally relevant networks. The ADR consists of three peaks: mismatch negativity (MMN), P3a, and reorienting negativity (RON) that are sequentially evoked in response to unattended changes in repetitive background stimulation. While previous studies have established the ADR’s sensitivity to a range of pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic interventions and are leading candidate biomarkers of perturbations of the central nervous system (CNS), here we sought to determine if ADR peaks are sensitive to decreases in breathable oxygen. Participants performed a visuomotor tracking task while EEG was recorded during two 27-min sessions. The two sessions differed in the amount of environmental oxygen available: 10.6% O2 (hypoxia) versus 20.4% O2 (normoxia). ERPs were measured while a series of identical, or “standard,” tones combined with occasional “oddball,” tones, were presented. MMN, P3a, and RON were assessed in response to the oddball compared to the standard stimuli. Behavioral impairment during hypoxia was demonstrated by a deficit in tracking performance compared to the normoxia condition. Whereas no changes were detected in the MMN or RON, the amplitude of the P3a component was significantly reduced during hypoxia compared to normoxia, within the first 9 min of exposure. To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate the effect of low oxygen exposure on passively elicited neural measures of early sensory processing. This study demonstrates that passively elicited EEG measures, reflecting preattentive auditory processing, are disrupted by acute hypoxia. Results have implications for the development of biomarkers for the noninvasive assessment of CNS perturbations.Funding Information
- Office of Naval Research
This publication has 47 references indexed in Scilit:
- Nonhuman primate model of schizophrenia using a noninvasive EEG methodProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2013
- Disentangling early sensory information processing deficits in schizophreniaClinical Neurophysiology, 2012
- Acute Nicotine Alteration of Sensory Memory Impairment in Smokers With SchizophreniaJournal of Clinical Psychopharmacology, 2010
- N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor dysfunction or dysregulation: The final common pathway on the road to schizophrenia?Brain Research Bulletin, 2010
- The mismatch negativity (MMN) in basic research of central auditory processing: A reviewClinical Neurophysiology, 2007
- Examining task-dependencies of different attentional processes as reflected in the P3a and reorienting negativity components of the human event-related brain potentialNeuroscience Letters, 2006
- Elevation-Dependent Symptom, Mood, and Performance Changes Produced by Exposure to Hypobaric HypoxiaThe International Journal of Aviation Psychology, 1998
- Hypobaric hypoxia impairs spatial memory in an elevation-dependent fashionBehavioral and Neural Biology, 1994
- The slowing of visual processing by hypoxiaErgonomics, 1993
- The effects of hypoxia on reaction time and movement time components of a perceptual—motor taskErgonomics, 1987