[Information processing and brain metabolic characteristics in patients at ultra-high risk for endogenous psychosis]

Functional and structural brain abnormalities in people at high risk for psychosis is a subject of intensive studies in biological psychiatry over the last decades. We studied correlations between neurophysiological and neuroimaging parameters in ultra-high risk patients.

Fifty-six patients, aged 17-25 years, with nonpsychotic mental disorders were examined. The control group included 30 age- and sex-matched healthy people. Neurophysiological study measured sensory gating. Proton MR-spectroscopy was used to study metabolic processes in the brain (index for glutamate/glutamine, N-acetylaspartate and choline containing compounds in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and thalamus of both hemispheres as well as in the genu and splenium of the corpus callosum).

We found the abnormality of sensory gating in patients at ultra-high risk for endogenous psychosis that was not correlated with the metabolic parameters. The latter were normal or were normalized during treatment.