Functional Biomarkers in the Diagnostics of Mental Disorders: Cognitive Event-Related Potentials

摘要

The article deals with recent research in the field of fundamental knowledge about the mechanisms of information processing in the human brain for the diagnosis of mental disorders performed in the laboratory of neurobiology for action programming of the Bechtereva Institute of the Human Brain of the Russian Academy of Sciences. These studies were connected with the analysis of functional components for cognitive event-related potentials (ERPs) obtained under various behavioral conditions. The main goal of this fundamental approach is the decomposition of multi-channel ERPs into functionally different components. These components are generated in various cortical areas, have different temporal dynamics, and reflect a variety of mental operations. The main methodology we used is the independent component analysis, applied to a large set of ERPs (from hundreds of people) obtained by varying functional conditions in the psychological test. In particular, components related to psychological processes, such as the comparison of sensory signals with a trace in working memory, inhibition of current activity, and monitoring of conflict, were identified in the GO/NOGO test. In the European project, a normative database was constructed for the components described above, and this allowed us to compare the data obtained from large groups of patients (including patients with attention deficit disorder, schizophrenia, obsessive disorders, depression, autism, dyslexia, brain trauma, and dementia) with the healthy subjects. This article presents data from patients with a diagnosis of attention deficit disorder and schizophrenia.