Abnormal multisensory facilitation patterns relate to disorganized thinking severity and cognitive decline in schizophrenia

Past research has demonstrated that patients with schizophrenia (SP) have visual processing and multisensory integration deficits. Additional studies report that sensory abnormalities are related to positive symptoms. To further understand how multisensory abnormalities relate to positive symptoms, we administered a multisensory integration task requiring the evaluation of perceived distance from auditory, visual, and multisensory stimuli with varying synchrony as well as clinical and neurocognitive assessments. Overall, patients had greater facilitation than healthy controls and the near synchronous condition had the most facilitation in comparison to other conditions. To further examine how multisensory facilitation relates to symptom severity, we performed a Ward cluster analysis that grouped participants by their multisensory facilitation profile. In contrast to what was expected, none of the Ward clusters were populated by a single group. Patients in cluster 3 had a significantly greater disorganization factor score than those in cluster 1. Our in-depth comparison between Ward clusters and neuropsychological tests reveal patients with greater multisensory facilitation experience the most cognitive deficits. Overall, our results demonstrate that multisensory integration is related to behavioral and cognitive deficits in complex ways. Further research is needed to understand the relationship between multisensory integration and schizophrenia symptomology. HighlightsO_LIPatients with schizophrenia have greater multisensory facilitation in perceived synchronous conditions C_LIO_LIMultisensory facilitation patterns are heterogenous across patients with Schizophrenia. C_LIO_LIDifferent multisensory patterns relate to cognitive decline and disorganized thinking in Schizophrenia. C_LI