Applicability of mismatch negativity in children and teenagers: a descriptive review

ABSTRACT Mismatch Negativity (MMN) is a cortical potential that occurs in response to a modification of an acoustic stimulus from a sequence of repeated stimuli, which reflects the brain capacity in relation to the discrimination of the sound passively, in other words, without the need of attention of the subject to the sound stimulus. Then, the aim of this study is to perform a descriptive review on MMN, in order to identify its applicability in children and teenagers, in the last five years. To this end, the search was performed in the Lilacs, SciELO, Medline and Pubmed databases by using the following descriptors: córtex auditivo, eletrofisiologia, potenciais evocados auditivos (the English version would be: auditory cortex, electrophysiology, auditory evoked potentials). In addition to, the words Mismatch and Negativity were used. In this review, we found 14 studies which evaluated children and/or teenagers with difficulty in speech articulation, specific language impairment, auditory processing disorder, Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, autism, risk for schizophrenia, psychosis, amusia, phenylketonuria and selective attention. So, it was possible to perform the descriptive review on the application of MMN in children and teenagers, concluding that in the last five years there were a reasonable article production about the theme. However, studies on this topic are not expressive in Brazil. Even though there is a variety of applications to MMN, in relation to the Brazilian population, there is a need for scientific evidences to use this potential in different age groups. We also verified that the search for MMN studies in the databases could be performed by only using the words Mismatch and Negativity.

摘要 失匹配负波（Mismatch Negativity, MMN）是一种皮层电位，由重复刺激序列中的听觉刺激变异所诱发，可反映大脑被动辨别声音的能力，即无需受试者主动关注该听觉刺激即可实现。本研究旨在针对MMN开展描述性综述，以明确近五年其在儿童及青少年群体中的应用价值。为此，我们在Lilacs、SciELO、Medline及PubMed数据库中进行检索，采用的检索词包括：听觉皮层（auditory cortex）、电生理学（electrophysiology）、听觉诱发电位（auditory evoked potentials），此外还使用了"Mismatch"与"Negativity"作为检索关键词。本次综述共纳入14项研究，这些研究针对存在以下病症或障碍的儿童和/或青少年展开评估：言语发音困难、特定语言障碍、听觉处理障碍、注意缺陷多动障碍（Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder, ADHD）、阅读障碍、孤独症、精神分裂症高危人群、精神病、失歌症、苯丙酮尿症以及选择性注意障碍。最终，我们完成了针对MMN在儿童及青少年群体中应用的描述性综述，结果显示近五年该主题的相关文献产出已具备一定规模，但巴西本土相关研究仍较为匮乏。尽管MMN的应用场景已较为广泛，但针对巴西人群的不同年龄组开展该电位的相关研究仍需更多科学证据支撑。此外，本综述还发现，仅通过"Mismatch"与"Negativity"两个关键词即可在上述数据库中检索到MMN相关研究。