Peculiarities of the Activity of the Brain Structures of People with Schizophrenia During the Categorization of Objects of Animate and Inanimate Nature

Abstract

One of the features of the work of the brain of people suffering from schizophrenia is changes in the activity of their brain during visual categorization of animate and inanimate objects. The purpose of this study was to analyze the brain activity of people with schizophrenia and their visual categorization of objects with different semantic and physical characteristics. It was assumed that the patterns of brain activity in individuals with schizophrenia would differ from the group of healthy individuals both in the early and late stages of visual processing. Using the method of visual evoked potentials, we studied the features of brain activity in 25 people suffering from schizophrenia from 1 to 7 years old, when they categorized images of animate and inanimate nature, low and high spatial frequency. It was found that the amplitudes of P170 (N170) in the left and right posterior and central leads, as well as the amplitudes of P300 in the central lead in people with schizophrenia do not differ during categorization of animate and inanimate objects, which does not correspond to the data obtained earlier from the people without mental health abnormalities. The revealed result is important for a better understanding of the restructuring of the brain during visual perception of objects of different categories, which occurs during the development of schizophrenia.