PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Yanyan Wei
AU  - Xiaochen Tang
AU  - Tingyu Zhang
AU  - Wenjun Su
AU  - Lihua Xu
AU  - Huiru Cui
AU  - Zhenying Qian
AU  - Tianhong Zhang
AU  - Jijun Wang
TI  - Reduced temporal activation during a verbal fluency test in clinical high risk of psychosis: a functional near-infrared spectroscopy-based study
AID  - 10.1136/gpsych-2021-100702
DP  - 2022 Apr 01
TA  - General Psychiatry
PG  - e100702
VI  - 35
IP  - 2
4099  - http://gpsych.bmj.com/content/35/2/e100702.short
4100  - http://gpsych.bmj.com/content/35/2/e100702.full
SO  - Gen Psych2022 Apr 01; 35
AB  - Background Clinical high risk (CHR) of psychosis is a state in which positive symptoms cause the subjects distress but do not approach a severity level that fulfils the criteria for a psychotic episode. CHR exhibits cognitive deficits; however, the underlying neurobiological mechanisms remain unclear. This study aimed to investigate whether brain activation measured by the levels of oxygenated hemoglobin (oxy-Hb) in CHR subjects could be correlated with cognitive deficits.Methods Fifty-eight CHR individuals who fulfilled the criteria for attenuated positive syndrome as specified in the Structured Interview for Prodromal Syndrome (SIPS) and the Scale of Prodromal Syndrome (SOPS) and 58 age- and sex-matched healthy participants were included in the study. All subjects completed the Measurement and Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia (MATRICS) Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB) that includes tests measuring attention, verbal memory, verbal fluency, executive function, and general intelligence. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was used to measure the level of oxy-Hb in the dorsolateral prefrontal and frontotemporal cortices.Results We observed significantly decreased oxy-Hb levels in channel 32 (located in the right superior temporal gyrus, rSTG)) within the CHR individuals compared with that in the healthy controls (HCs) (t=−3.44, Bonferroni-corrected p=0.002), indicating lower brain activity. A significant positive correlation was observed between task-related β values and working memory in the CHR group (r=0.35, p=0.008).Conclusions The brain activation of rSTG is abnormal among subjects at clinicial high risk for psychosis. This abnormality is probably associated with the neural mechanisms of deficits in the working memory during the early stage of psychosis.Data are available upon reasonable request. The data used in this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.