The Mismatch Negativity

摘要

In the present article, I will selectively review some of the recent research on the brain substrates of central-auditory processing using the mismatch negativity (MMN) and its magnetoencephalographic equivalent MMNm, trying to identify some of the most promising trends in this research work. Although the early MMN research dealt almost exclusively with basic cognitive-neuroscience issues, more recently, the usefulness of the MMN phenomenon with regard to a large number of clinical and other applied issues has also been realized. Nine research lines or issues with particular promise will be identified, many of which are of a clinical/applied nature. Cognitive brain research using the MMN, an automatic electric response to any discriminable change in auditory stimulation, has continued for three decades and seems continuously to gain in number, inspired by novel findings, there now being approximately 1,000 articles in English-language international journals using, or referring to, the MMN. There are several highly promising research lines or issues: (1) the MMN as an index of early cognitive development, (2) the MMN as an index of the functional condition of the NMDA-receptor system, (3) the MMN as an index of the different brain pathologies underlying schizophrenia, (4) the role of the MMN in genetic research of psychopathology, (5) the extremely wide range of MMN deficiency across different clinical conditions and diseases, (6) the MMN in prediction of coma outcome, (7) the MMN as an index of primitive sensory intelligence in audition, and (8) the MMN as an index of brain mechanisms of speech perception and understanding. These findings, in particular (8), extend the interpretation of the MMN, currently mainly confined to sensory representations, to involve auditory memory in general.