Okay here’s another very interesting finding in schizophrenia: our motor cortex interacts with our auditory cortex so that we tend to suppress the brain reaction to the sound of our own voice. This is not voluntary, it’s something we see on EEG in microsecond timing.
Folks with schizophrenia do not (in general) inhibit the auditory response to their own voice. This finding also correlated with increased serum inflammatory factors and microglial activation in the CNS.
Presumably the brain inhibits our reaction to our own voice so it’s easier for us to focus on other things and not be distracted as much by our own voice. People with schizophrenia cannot do this and process the sound of their own voice the same as other people’s voices.
While there is a lot out there on cerebral inhibition and psychosis, this is the first I’ve heard of the “own voice” difference.
In any event the *hypothesis* is that some sort of systemic and brain inflammation screws up the auditory inhibition (and other sensory inhibitions, there’s data on that too) and this process is part of the development of a chronic psychotic disorder.
Lower auditory inhibition and higher *serum* inflammatory cytokines are associated with increased thinning of the cortex in folks with prodromal and early psychotic illness.
So they are starting studies of anti-inflammatories (like baby aspirin or minocycline) in critical periods of very high risk prodromal psychotic populations...stay tuned.
Also, this is where a lot of unusual interventions like omega 3s or folate or probiotics, that subtly modulate the immune system or maximize recovery and repair might benefit or prevent chronic conditions...but specifically during a critical period...
For autism and maybe schizophrenia during pregnancy, infancy, for schizophrenia teen years to young adulthood, for dementia late middle age....I’m generalizing a great deal but there are some interesting studies already looking at these on my blog.
Studying interventions like these in the general population is a wash, but in specific time periods for specific high risk folks these could be helpful low risk maneuvers with some real punch, if we’re lucky.
Here’s a study with choline in pregnancy and cerebral inhibition in babies: psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evolut…
Here’s another 13 year long follow up with probiotics and ADHD/autistic spectrum psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evolut…
The omega 3 prodromal psychosis was promising at first but later studies didn’t pan out (this was confusing because there were two original papers and long follow up, but the author used the same cohort, so it wasn’t really replication)
If you take a group of teens who are ultra high risk for schizophrenia (say a first degree relative with schizophrenia and some psychotic symptoms such as hearing voices or paranoia), only 20%-30% maybe will go on to develop lifelong chronic psychotic disorders.
If these kids are recognized early and there’s a low risk intervention to prevent progression over the critical risk period, that would be fantastic...this is the holy grail of psychosis research in the US.
