A predictive coding account of MMN reduction in schizophrenia

The mismatch negativity (MMN) is thought to be an index of the automatic activation of a specialized network for active prediction and deviance detection in the auditory cortex. It is consistently reduced in schizophrenic patients and has received a lot of interest as a clinical and translational tool. The main neuronal hypothesis regarding the mechanisms leading to a reduced MMN in schizophrenic patients is a dysfunction of NMDA receptors (NMDA-R). However, this hypothesis has never been implemented in a neuronal model. In this paper, we examine the consequences of NMDA-R dysfunction in a neuronal model of MMN based on predictive coding principle. I also investigate how predictive processes may interact with synaptic adaptation in MMN generations and examine the consequences of this interaction for the use of MMN paradigms in schizophrenia research.