PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Kenneth Wengler
AU  - Andrew T. Goldberg
AU  - George Chahine
AU  - Guillermo Horga
TI  - Distinct Hierarchical Alterations of Intrinsic Neural Timescales Account for Different Manifestations of Psychosis
AID  - 10.1101/2020.02.07.939520
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.02.07.939520
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/10/12/2020.02.07.939520.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/10/12/2020.02.07.939520.full
AB  - Hierarchical perceptual-inference models of psychosis may provide a holistic framework for understanding psychosis in schizophrenia including heterogeneity in clinical presentations. Particularly, hypothesized alterations at distinct levels of the perceptual-inference hierarchy may explain why hallucinations and delusions tend to cluster together yet sometimes manifest in isolation. To test this, we used a recently developed resting-state fMRI measure of intrinsic neural timescale (INT), which reflects the time window of neural integration and captures hierarchical brain gradients. In analyses examining extended sensory hierarchies that we first validated, we found distinct hierarchical INT alterations for hallucinations versus delusions in the auditory and somatosensory systems, thus providing support for hierarchical perceptual-inference models of psychosis. Simulations using a large-scale biophysical model suggested local elevations of excitation-inhibition ratio at different hierarchical levels as a potential mechanism. More generally, our work highlights the robustness and utility of INT for studying hierarchical processes relevant to basic and clinical neuroscience.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.