The Study Of Binocular Rivalry Of Schizophrenia And Their Unaffected Siblings

Background: Binocular rivalry is a typical example of bistable perception in the presence of two monocular images at the same time.It is an interesting perceptual phenomenon,common in patients with schizophrenia(SZ),and has been found to significantly reduce the switching rate in patients with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.Resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging(rs-f MRI)is a noninvasive and advanced neuroimaging technique.Electrophysiological studies have shown that the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation(ALFF)may be caused by spontaneous neuron activity,which has physiological significance.It is manifested as the rhythmic activity of brain regions through the interaction of information between connecting regions in the brain.Therefore,ALFF may reflect the characteristics of the brain.Objective:This study investigated whether individual variation in binocular rivalry rate was related to heredity,and whether binocular rivalry switching rate slowing down was a potential visual phenotype in schizophrenia,and explored the neural brain network mechanism of binocular rivalry phenomenon through ALFF index.Method:Cognitive behavioral assessment and binocular rivalry tests were performed on 40 pairs of schizophrenia patients and their unaffected siblings and 40 healthy controls.Only 20 pairs of the patients and their unaffected siblings underwent MRI scans,obtaining blood oxygen level dependent signal,using ALFF method divided the SZ patients and their unaffected siblings of the disease compared with healthy controls, and the behavioral results and binocular rivalry test results of the three groups were compared for correlation analysis.Results:Our results show that the switching rate of SZ is significantly lower than HC(p<0.001),and the average switching rate of SZ is significantly different from that of SIB(p<0.01).The average conversion rate of SIB and HC was significantly different(p<0.001).One-way ANOVA showed that ALFF values of SZ group,SIB group and HC group were significantly different in four brain regions: left calcarine,left putamen nucleus,parahippocampal gyrus and brainstem.Post-hoc analysis showed that in the left talus sulcus,the ALFF value of SZ group and SIB group was lower than that of HC group,and the ALFF value of SZ group was lower than that of SIB group,with significant difference between the three groups.In the putamen,parahippocampal gyrus and brainstem,the ALFF values of SZ group were significantly increased compared with that of SIB group and HC group,and there was no significant difference in ALFF values between SIB group and HC group(all p<0.05).There was no significant correlation between the alternation rate of binocular competition and these cognitive tasks,PANSS score and ALFF values.Conclusions:Changes in binocular rivalry may be an underlying visual interphenotype in schizophrenia.At the same time,the results of this study also further explore the brain network mechanism of binocular rivalry.We found that binocular rivalry not only includes the regulation of neural circuits,but also may involve the dynamic and multi-level interaction of competition in multiple processing stages.Therefore,we hypothesize that the left talus sulcus and the left putamina may be the basis of the characteristic brain network of binocular rivalry in schizophrenia.