M69. IMPROVING VISUAL ATTENTION TO SOCIAL STIMULI IN INDIVIDUALS WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA

BACKGROUND: Social dysfunction is a hallmark characteristic of schizophrenia, and individuals with this disorder often report difficulty navigating daily social interactions. Perceptual deficits, such as faulty visual attention to important aspects of social stimuli (i.e., failing to look at the most relevant portions of a stimulus), may be one mechanism by which social deficits arise. Faulty modulation of specific neural regions such as the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ), may underlie visual attention abnormalities, and may act as suitable targets for neurostimulation. The current study utilizes neurostimulation to experimentally manipulate specific neural networks and determine whether stimulation 1) improves visual attention, 2) improves performance on social cognitive tasks, and 3) whether altered visual attention moderates this improved performance. METHODS: Using a double-blind crossover design, participants underwent both active and sham stimulation via tDCS approximately one week apart. Half of the participants received active and sham stimulation of rTPJ (n = 22), while the other half received active and sham stimulation of a comparator site within the social brain network (dmPFC, n = 23). After stimulation, visual attention was assessed through concurrent eye-tracking while participants complete several tasks of social cognition (emotion recognition: ER40, BLERT; Theory of Mind: TASIT). Visual attention was determined as the proportion of time spent attending to socially and contextually important AOIs. RESULTS: Data collection and data processing are still ongoing for this study, however planned interim analyses on a subset of the total sample (n = 45) indicate small to medium effects of active stimulation to the rTPJ compared to sham and dmPFC stimulation for both visual attention (ηp2=.035) and social cognitive performance on the BLERT task (ηp2=.067), specifically. These same effects are not seen in the other social cognitive tasks. Final analyses based on a sample size of 72 individuals are expected to be complete prior to presentation at SIRS 2020. DISCUSSION: This study is the first, to our knowledge, to target this neural region within schizophrenia for the purposes of improving visual attention and, subsequently, social cognition. Should the pattern of results from our interim analyses hold after completion of data collection, results indicate that active stimulation to the rTPJ has a unique impact on dynamic emotional stimuli, improving visual attention and accuracy in emotion recognition, suggesting a primary role of the rTPJ and visual attention in performance on this task. The intricate design of this study allows for thorough investigation of potential mechanisms by which social cognitive deficits develop, and the use of novel experimental techniques align with the theme of this year’s conference.