Abstract
Disorders of consciousness and the self are at the forefront of schizophrenia
symptomatology. Patients are impaired in feeling themselves as the authors of their
thoughts and actions. In addition, their flow of consciousness is disrupted, and thought
fragmentation has been suggested to be involved in the patients’ difficulties in feeling
as being one unique, unchanging self across time. Both impairments are related to
self disorders, and both have been investigated at the experimental level. Here we
review evidence that both mechanisms of motor control and the temporal structure
of signal processing are impaired in schizophrenia patients. Based on this review,
we propose that the sequencing of action and perception plays a key role in the
patients’ impairments. Furthermore, the millisecond time scale of the disorders, as
well as the impaired sequencing, highlights the cooperation between brain networks
including the cerebellum, as proposed by Andreasen (1999). We examine this possibility
in the light of recent knowledge on the anatomical and physiological properties
of the cerebellum, its role in timing, and its involvement in known physiological
impairments in patients with schizophrenia, e.g., resting states and brain dynamics.
A disruption in communication between networks involving the cerebellum, related
to known impairments in dopamine, glutamate and GABA transmission, may help to
better explain why patients experience reduced attunement with the external world and
possibly with themselves.