Abstract
Background: Impairments in the attribution of salience are thought to be fundamental to the development of psychotic symptoms and the onset of psychotic disorders. The aim of the present study was to explore longitudinal alterations in salience processing in ultra high-risk subjects for psychosis.
Methods: 23 ultra high-risk subjects and 13 healthy controls underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging at two time points (mean interval of 17 months) while performing the Salience Attribution Test to assess neural responses to task-relevant (adaptive salience) and task-irrelevant (aberrant salience) stimulus features.
Results: At presentation, high-risk subjects were less likely than controls to attribute salience to relevant features, and more likely to attribute salience to irrelevant stimulus features. These behavioural differences were no longer evident at follow-up. When attributing salience to relevant cue features, ultra high-risk subjects showed less activation than controls in the ventral striatum at both baseline and follow-up. Within the high-risk sample, amelioration of abnormal beliefs over the followup period was correlated with an increase in right ventral striatum activation during the attribution of salience to relevant cue features.
Conclusions: These findings confirm that salience processing is perturbed in ultra high-risk subjects for psychosis, that this is linked to alterations in ventral striatum function, and that clinical outcomes are related to longitudinal changes in ventral striatum function during salience processing.
© 2016 Cambridge University Press. The attached document (embargoed until 04/04/2017) is an author produced version of a paper published in Psychological Medicine uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self- archiving policy. The final published version (version of record) is available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0033291716002439. Some minor differences between this version and the final published version may remain. We suggest you refer to the final published version should you wish to cite from it.
Methods: 23 ultra high-risk subjects and 13 healthy controls underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging at two time points (mean interval of 17 months) while performing the Salience Attribution Test to assess neural responses to task-relevant (adaptive salience) and task-irrelevant (aberrant salience) stimulus features.
Results: At presentation, high-risk subjects were less likely than controls to attribute salience to relevant features, and more likely to attribute salience to irrelevant stimulus features. These behavioural differences were no longer evident at follow-up. When attributing salience to relevant cue features, ultra high-risk subjects showed less activation than controls in the ventral striatum at both baseline and follow-up. Within the high-risk sample, amelioration of abnormal beliefs over the followup period was correlated with an increase in right ventral striatum activation during the attribution of salience to relevant cue features.
Conclusions: These findings confirm that salience processing is perturbed in ultra high-risk subjects for psychosis, that this is linked to alterations in ventral striatum function, and that clinical outcomes are related to longitudinal changes in ventral striatum function during salience processing.
© 2016 Cambridge University Press. The attached document (embargoed until 04/04/2017) is an author produced version of a paper published in Psychological Medicine uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self- archiving policy. The final published version (version of record) is available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0033291716002439. Some minor differences between this version and the final published version may remain. We suggest you refer to the final published version should you wish to cite from it.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 243-254 |
| Journal | Psychological Medicine |
| Volume | 47(2) |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jan 2017 |