Clinical psychoacoustics can support an objective diagnosis of schizophrenia

This article deals with a new branch of research in psychiatry focusing upon schizophrenia in the first hand. Methods of investigating psychoacoustic aberrations in this disease have been developed during the last twenty years at our laboratory; Unit of Clinical psychoacoustics, Division of Psychiatry, Dept of Clinical Neuroscience, Lund University (www.psykiatr.lu.se/psykoaclab). Schizophrenic persons show dysfunctions at the psychophysiological level as displayed by many psychoacoustic mechanisms such as streaming, restoration and contralateral induction of sounds. These dysfunctions may influence general cognitive and perceptual processes and partly explain clinically observed symptoms of the disease. Further investigations on the efforts to elucidate normal functioning of the psychoacoustic processes by functional magnetic resonance imaging, auditory brainstem response and via animal models are described. One immediate aim of all the studies is to be able to demonstrate objective measurements of the schizophrenic aberrations using psychoacoustic tests. This would help supporting the diagnosis, setting early diagnosis or guide therapeutic decisions.