Brain Marker May Show Psychosis Vulnerability in Teens
An exaggerated emotional brain response to nonthreatening, nonemotional cues at age 14 predicted the onset of psychosis symptoms within the next 2 years, in a study published online in The American Journal of Psychiatry.
“Our research reveals that vulnerability to psychosis can be identified at an early adolescence period,” said senior author Patricia Conrod, PhD, a psychiatry professor at the Université de Montréal and a researcher at Sainte-Justine University Hospital Research Center, Montreal. “Since psychosis onset is typically during the beginning of adulthood, early identification of psychosis vulnerability gives clinicians a large window of time in which to intervene on risky behaviors and key etiologic processes.”
The study spanned more than 1,000 teenagers who were participants in the Imaging Genetics for Mental Disorders study. Researchers measured brain activity during cognitive tasks to gauge reward sensitivity, inhibitory control, and emotional processing.
In a group of 14-year-olds reporting occasional psychotic-like experiences, researchers found strong emotional responses to nonemotional stimuli, such as neutral faces. At age 16, 6% of participants reported experiencing auditory or visual hallucinations and delusional ideas. These experiences, researchers found, were significantly predicted by psychotic-like tendencies and brain reactivity to neutral stimuli at age 14, as well as cannabis use that began before age 16.
“We were able to detect brain-related abnormalities in teens before psychotic experiences and substance misuse began to cause significant cognitive impairment and require medical intervention,” Dr. Conrod said.
“It has yet to be determined whether exaggerated emotional reactivity to nonsalient cues can be modified in young adolescents and whether such modifications can benefit at-risk youth,” she added. “This is something that we hope to investigate as a follow-up to these findings.”
—Jolynn Tumolo
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