Linked Life Data

19995870

Source:http://linkedlifedata.com/resource/pubmed/id/19995870

Statements in which the resource exists as a subject.
PredicateObject
rdf:type
lifeskim:mentions
pubmed:issue
Pt 1
pubmed:dateCreated
2010-1-5
pubmed:abstractText
The experience of being the initiator of one's own actions seems to be infallible at first glance. Misattributions of agency of one's actions in certain neurological or psychiatric patients reveal, however, that the central mechanisms underlying this experience can go astray. In particular, delusions of influence in schizophrenia might result from deficits in an inferential mechanism that allows distinguishing whether or not a sensory event has been self-produced. This distinction is made by comparing the actual sensory information with the consequences of one's action as predicted on the basis of internal action-related signals such as efference copies. If this internal prediction matches the actual sensory event, an action is registered as self-caused; in case of a mismatch, the difference is interpreted as externally produced. We tested the hypothesis that delusions of influence are based on deficits in this comparator mechanism. In particular, we tested whether patients' impairments in action attribution tasks are caused by imprecise predictions about the sensory consequences of self-action. Schizophrenia patients and matched controls performed pointing movements in a virtual-reality setup in which the visual consequences of movements could be rotated with respect to the actual movement. Experiment 1 revealed higher thresholds for detecting experimental feedback rotations in the patient group. The size of these thresholds correlated positively with patients' delusions of influence. Experiment 2 required subjects to estimate their direction of pointing visually in the presence of constantly rotated visual feedback. When compared to controls, patients' estimates were significantly better adapted to the feedback rotation and exhibited an increased variability. In interleaved trials without visual feedback, i.e. when pointing estimates relied solely on internal action-related signals, this variability was likewise increased and correlated with both delusions of influence and the size of patients' detection thresholds as assessed in the first experiment. These findings support the notion that delusions of influence are based on imprecise internal predictions about the sensory consequences of one's actions. Moreover, we suggest that such imprecise predictions prompt patients to rely more strongly on (and thus adapt to) external agency cues, in this case vision. Such context-dependent weighted integration of imprecise internal predictions and alternative agency cues might thus reflect the common basis for the various misattributions of agency in schizophrenia patients.
pubmed:language
eng
pubmed:journal
pubmed:citationSubset
AIM
pubmed:status
MEDLINE
pubmed:month
Jan
pubmed:issn
1460-2156
pubmed:author
pubmed:issnType
Electronic
pubmed:volume
133
pubmed:owner
NLM
pubmed:authorsComplete
Y
pubmed:pagination
262-71
pubmed:meshHeading
pubmed:year
2010
pubmed:articleTitle
Misattributions of agency in schizophrenia are based on imprecise predictions about the sensory consequences of one's actions.
pubmed:affiliation
Department of Neurodegeneration, Hertie-Institute for Clinical Brain Research, Hoppe-Seyler-Strasse 3, 72076 Tübingen, Germany. matthis.synofzik@uni-tuebingen.de
pubmed:publicationType
Journal Article, Comparative Study, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't