Anterior hippocampal dysfunction in early psychosis: A 2-year follow-up study

Maureen McHugo, Suzanne Avery, Kristan Armstrong, Baxter P. Rogers, Simon N. Vandekar, Neil D. Woodward, Jennifer Urbano Blackford, Stephan Heckers

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

Background Cross-sectional studies indicate that hippocampal function is abnormal across stages of psychosis. Neural theories of psychosis pathophysiology suggest that dysfunction worsens with illness stage. Here, we test the hypothesis that hippocampal function is impaired in the early stage of psychosis and declines further over the next 2 years. Methods We measured hippocampal function over 2 years using a scene processing task in 147 participants (76 individuals in the early stage of a non-affective psychotic disorder and 71 demographically similar healthy control individuals). Two-year follow-up was completed in 97 individuals (50 early psychosis, 47 healthy control). Voxelwise longitudinal analysis of activation in response to scenes was carried out within a hippocampal region of interest to test for group differences at baseline and a group by time interaction. Results At baseline, we observed lower anterior hippocampal activation in the early psychosis group relative to the healthy control group. Contrary to our hypothesis, hippocampal activation remained consistent and did not show the predicted decline over 2 years in the early psychosis group. Healthy controls showed a modest reduction in hippocampal activation after 2 years. Conclusions The results of this study suggest that hippocampal dysfunction in early psychosis does not worsen over 2 years and highlight the need for longer-term longitudinal studies.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)160-169
Number of pages10
JournalPsychological medicine
Volume53
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 20 2023
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Early psychosis
  • fMRI
  • hippocampus
  • longitudinal
  • schizophrenia

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Applied Psychology
  • Psychiatry and Mental health

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