Correlations between Negative Symptoms and Cognitive Deficits in Individuals at First Psychotic Episode or at High Risk of Psychosis: A Systematic Review
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PROVIDER: S-EPMC10672428 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Nov
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Extrapyramidal (EP) symptoms such as tremor, rigidity, and bradykinesia are common side effects of most antipsychotics, and may associate with impaired performance in neurocognitive testing. We studied EP symptoms in first-episode psychosis (FEP; n = 113). Cognitive testing and EP symptoms (three items of the Simpson-Angus Scale) were assessed at baseline and follow-up (mean follow-up time 12 months). Mild EP symptoms were present at treatment onset in 40% of the participants. EP symptoms were related with lower performance in neurocognitive testing at baseline and at follow-up, especially among those with nonaffective psychotic disorder, and especially in tasks requiring speed of processing. No associations between EP symptoms and social cognition were detected. In linear regression models, when positive and negative symptom levels and chlorpromazine equivalents were accounted for, baseline EP symptoms were associated with worse baseline global neurocognition and visuomotor performance. Baseline EP symptoms also longitudinally predicted global, verbal, and visuomotor cognition. However, there were no cross-sectional associations between EP symptoms and cognitive performance at follow-up. In sum, we found both cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between EP symptoms and neurocognitive task performance in the early course of psychosis. Those without EP symptoms at the start of treatment had higher baseline and follow-up neurocognitive performance. Even mild EP symptoms may represent early markers of long-term neurocognitive impairment.
| S-EPMC9352759 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundDespite a large body of schizophrenia research, we still have no reliable predictors to guide treatment from illness onset. The present study aimed to identify baseline clinical or neurobiological factors - including peripheral brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels and amygdala or hippocampal relative volumes - that could predict negative symptomatology and persistent negative symptoms in first-episode psychosis after 1 year of follow-up.MethodsWe recruited 50 drug-naive patients with first-episode psychosis and 50 age- and sex-matched healthy controls to study brain volumes. We performed univariate and multiple and logistic regression analyses to determine the association between baseline clinical and neurobiological variables, score on the PANSS negative subscale and persistent negative symptoms after 1 year of follow-up.ResultsLow baseline serum BDNF levels (p = 0.011), decreased left amygdala relative volume (p = 0.001) and more severe negative symptomatology (p = 0.021) predicted the severity of negative symptoms at 1 year, as measured by the PANSS negative subscale. Low baseline serum BDNF levels (p = 0.012) and decreased left amygdala relative volume (p = 0.010) predicted persistent negative symptoms at 1 year.LimitationsWe were unable to assess negative symptoms and their dimensions with next-generation scales, which were not available when the study was initiated.ConclusionThis study shows that a set of variables at baseline, including low BDNF levels, smaller left amygdala relative volume and score on the PANSS negative subscale are significant predictors of outcomes in first-episode psychosis. These findings might offer an initial step for tailoring treatments in first-episode psychosis.
| S-EPMC8789336 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Psychotic disorders are highly heterogeneous. Understanding relationships between symptoms will be relevant to their underlying pathophysiology. We apply dimensionality-reduction methods across two unique samples to characterize the patterns of symptom organization. We analyzed publicly-available data from 153 participants diagnosed with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder (fBIRN Data Repository and the Consortium for Neuropsychiatric Phenomics), as well as 636 first-episode psychosis (FEP) participants from the Prevention and Early Intervention Program for Psychosis (PEPP-Montreal). In all participants, the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms (SAPS) and Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS) were collected. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) combined with cluster analysis was applied to SAPS and SANS scores across these two groups of participants. MDS revealed relationships between items of SAPS and SANS. Our application of cluster analysis to these results identified: 1 cluster of disorganization symptoms, 2 clusters of hallucinations/delusions, and 2 SANS clusters (asocial and apathy, speech and affect). Those reality distortion items which were furthest from auditory hallucinations had very weak to no relationship with hallucination severity. Despite being at an earlier stage of illness, symptoms in FEP presentations were similarly organized. While hallucinations and delusions commonly co-occur, we found that their specific themes and content sometimes travel together and sometimes do not. This has important implications, not only for treatment, but also for research-particularly efforts to understand the neurocomputational and pathophysiological mechanism underlying delusions and hallucinations.
| S-EPMC10039017 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Early persistent negative symptoms (PNS) following a first episode of psychosis (FEP) are linked to poor functional outcome. Reports of reduced amygdalar and hippocampal volumes in early psychosis have not accounted for heterogeneity of symptoms. Age is also seldom considered in this population, a factor that has the potential to uncover symptom-specific maturational biomarkers pertaining to volume and shape changes within the hippocampus and amygdala. T1-weighted volumes were acquired for early (N=21), secondary (N=30), non-(N=44) PNS patients with a FEP, and controls (N=44). Amygdalar-hippocampal volumes and surface area (SA) metrics were extracted with the Multiple Automatically Generated Templates (MAGeT)-Brain algorithm. Linear mixed models were applied to test for a main effect of group and age × group interactions. Early PNS patients had significantly reduced left amygdalar and right hippocampal volumes, as well as similarly lateralized negative age × group interactions compared to secondary PNS patients (P<0.017, corrected). Morphometry revealed decreased SA in early PNS compared with other patient groups in left central amygdala, and in a posterior region when compared with controls. Early and secondary PNS patients had significantly decreased SA as a function of age compared with patients without such symptoms within the right hippocampal tail (P<0.05, corrected). Significant amygdalar-hippocampal changes with age are linked to PNS after a FEP, with converging results from volumetric and morphometric analyses. Differential age trajectories suggest an aberrant maturational process within FEP patients presenting with PNS, which could represent dynamic endophenotypes setting these patients apart from their non-symptomatic peers. Studies are encouraged to parse apart such symptom constructs when examining neuroanatomical changes emerging after a FEP.
| S-EPMC5611735 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Cognitive dysfunction is a well-established feature of schizophrenia, and there is evidence suggesting that cognitive deficits are secondary to abnormal neurodevelopment leading to problems in acquiring such abilities. However, it is not clear whether there is also a decline in cognitive performance over, or after, the onset of psychosis. Our objective was to quantitatively examine the longitudinal changes in cognitive function in patients who presented with first-episode psychosis (FEP), ultra-high risk (UHR) for psychosis, and controls. Electronic databases were searched for the studies published between January 1987 and February 2013. All studies reporting longitudinal cognitive data in FEP and UHR subjects were retrieved. We conducted meta-analyses of 25 studies including 905 patients with FEP, 560 patients at UHR, and 405 healthy controls. The cognitive performances of FEP, UHR, and healthy controls all significantly improved over time. There was no publication bias, and distributions of effect sizes were very homogenous. In FEP, the degree of improvement in verbal working memory and executive functions was significantly associated with reduction in negative symptoms. There was no evidence of cognitive decline in patients with UHR and FEP. In contrast, the cognitive performances of both groups improved at follow-up. These findings suggest that cognitive deficits are already established before the prodromal phases of psychosis. These data support the neurodevelopmental model rather than neurodegenerative and related staging models of schizophrenia.
| S-EPMC4059428 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Although depressive symptoms in first episode psychosis have been associated with cannabis abuse, their influence on the long-term functional course of FEP patients who abuse cannabis is unknown. The aims of the study were to examine the influence of subclinical depressive symptoms on the long-term outcome in first episode-psychosis patients who were cannabis users and to assess the influence of these subclinical depressive symptoms on the ability to quit cannabis use.64 FEP patients who were cannabis users at baseline were followed-up for 5 years. Two groups were defined: (a) patients with subclinical depressive symptoms at least once during follow-up (DPG), and (b) patients without subclinical depressive symptoms during follow-up (NDPG). Psychotic symptoms were measured using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), depressive symptoms using the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS)-17, and psychosocial functioning was assessed using the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF). A linear mixed-effects model was used to analyze the combined influence of cannabis use and subclinical depressive symptomatology on the clinical outcome.Subclinical depressive symptoms were associated with continued abuse of cannabis during follow-up (β= 4.45; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.78 to 11.17; P = .001) and with worse functioning (β = -5.50; 95% CI: -9.02 to -0.33; P = .009).Subclinical depressive symptoms and continued cannabis abuse during follow-up could be predictors of negative outcomes in FEP patients.
| S-EPMC4398379 | biostudies-other
Project description:Numerous studies have identified reinforcement learning (RL) deficits in schizophrenia. Most have focused on chronic patients with longstanding antipsychotic treatment, however, and studies of RL in early-illness patients have produced mixed results, particularly regarding gradual/procedural learning. No study has directly contrasted both rapid and gradual RL in first-episode psychosis (FEP) samples. We examined probabilistic RL in 34 FEP patients and 36 controls, using Go/NoGo (GNG) and Gain vs Loss-Avoidance (GLA) paradigms. Our results were mixed, with FEP patients exhibiting greater impairment in the ability to use positive, as opposed to negative, feedback to drive rapid RL on the GLA, but not the GNG. By contrast, patients and controls showed similar improvement across the acquisition. Finally, we found no significant between-group differences in the postacquisition expression of value-based preference in both tasks. Negative symptoms were modestly associated with RL measures, while the overall bias to engage in Go-responding correlated significantly with psychosis severity in FEP patients, consistent with striatal hyperdopaminergia. Taken together, FEP patients demonstrated more circumscribed RL impairments than previous studies have documented in chronic samples, possibly reflecting differential symptom profiles between first-episode and chronic samples. Our finding of relatively preserved gradual/procedural RL, in briefly medicated FEP patients, might suggest spared or restored basal ganglia function. Our findings of preserved abilities to use representations of expected value to guide decision making, and our mixed results regarding rapid RL, may reflect a lesser degree of prefrontal cortical functional impairment in FEP than in chronic samples. Further longitudinal research, in larger samples, is required.
| S-EPMC5049533 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Visual perceptual and processing deficits are common in schizophrenia and possibly point towards visual pathway alterations. However, no studies have examined visual cortical morphology in first-episode psychosis (FEP). In an antipsychotic-naïve FEP population, we investigated primary visual (V1), association area (V2), and motion perception (V5/MT) morphology compared to controls. We found reductions in the V1 and V2 areas, greater MT area and lower MT thickness in the FEP-schizophrenia group when compared to controls. Also, lower MT thickness was associated with worse negative symptoms. Our results shed light on this poorly studied area of visual cortex morphology in FEP.
| S-EPMC7333935 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Prospective population studies suggest that psychotic syndromes may be an emergent phenomenon-a function of severity and complexity of more common mental health presentations and their nonpsychotic symptoms. Examining the relationship between nonpsychotic and subthreshold psychotic symptoms in individuals who later developed the ultimate outcome of interest, a first episode of psychosis (FEP), could provide valuable data to support or refute this conceptualization of how psychosis develops. We therefore conducted a detailed follow-back study consisting of semistructured interviews with 430 patients and families supplemented by chart reviews in a catchment-based sample of affective and nonaffective FEP. The onset and sequence of 27 pre-onset nonpsychotic (NPS) or subthreshold psychotic (STPS) symptoms was systematically characterized. Differences in proportions were analyzed with z-tests, and correlations were assessed with negative binomial regressions. Both the first psychiatric symptom (86.24% NPS) and the first prodromal symptom (66.51% NPS) were more likely to be NPS than STPS. Patients reporting pre-onset STPS had proportionally more of each NPS than did those without pre-onset STPS. Finally, there was a strong positive correlation between NPS counts (reflecting complexity) and STPS counts (β = 0.34, 95% CI [0.31, 0.38], P < 2 e-16). Prior to a FEP, NPS precede STPS, and greater complexity of NPS is associated with the presence and frequency of STPS. These findings complement recent arguments that the emergence of psychotic illness is better conceptualized as part of a continuum-with implications for understanding pluripotential developmental trajectories and strengthening early intervention paradigms.
| S-EPMC8759816 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Neurobiological and behavioral findings suggest that psychosis is associated with corticolimbic hyperactivity during the processing of emotional salience. This has not been widely studied in the early stages of psychosis, and the impact of these abnormalities on psychotic symptoms and global functioning is unknown. We sought to address this issue in 18 patients with first-episode psychosis (FEP), 18 individuals at ultra high risk of psychosis (UHR) and 22 healthy controls (HCs). Corticolimbic response and subjective ratings to emotional and neutral scenes were measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging. The clinical and functional impact of corticolimbic abnormalities was assessed with regression analyses. The FEP and UHR groups reported increased subjective emotional arousal to neutral scenes compared with HCs. Across groups, emotional vs neutral scenes elicited activation in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, inferior frontal gyrus/anterior insula and amygdala. Although FEP and UHR participants showed reduced activation in these regions when viewing emotional scenes compared with controls, this was driven by increased activation to neutral scenes. Corticolimbic hyperactivity to neutral scenes predicted higher levels of positive symptoms and poorer levels of functioning. These results indicate that disruption of emotional brain systems may represent an important biological substrate for the pathophysiology of early psychosis and UHR states.
| S-EPMC4590543 | biostudies-literature