Neurocognitive function as a possible marker for remission from clinical high risk for psychosis

Recent studies revealed that nonconverters at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis comprise those who later remit from initial CHR state and those who do not remit and continue to have attenuated positive symptoms. CHR subjects who remit symptomatically are comparable to healthy controls for both baseline and longitudinal symptoms. However, the neurocognitive characteristics of this population are still obscure.

Seventy-five CHR subjects and 61 healthy controls were recruited, and their neurocognitive functions were assessed. CHR subjects were divided into converter, remitter, and non-remitter groups according to their clinical state during a 12 to 24month follow-up.

Only the remitter group was comparable to healthy controls in terms of baseline neurocognitive functions. We observed that remitters showed better performance at baseline on tasks of attention, immediate/delayed verbal memory, verbal fluency, and immediate visual memory compared with converters. Moreover, we found that performance on semantic fluency was significantly improved in remitters but declined in non-remitters over the 2-year follow-up; however, there was no significant difference between these two groups at baseline.

CHR nonconverters who later remit from an initial prodromal state do not show reduced neurocognitive functioning compared with healthy controls at baseline. Therefore, an advanced research diagnostic criterion for a CHR state that considers neurocognitive functions is needed to more precisely predict which patients will develop psychosis.