Chou Po-Han, Lin Wei-Hao, Li Wang-Rung, Huang Chih-Mao, Sun Chia-Wei
Department of Psychiatry, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan; Department of Photonics, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan; Department of Biological Science and Technology, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan; Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, Taiwan.
Department of Psychiatry, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan.
Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry. 2017 Aug 1;78:96-104. doi: 10.1016/j.pnpbp.2017.05.001. Epub 2017 May 9.
Diminished functional lateralization in language-related areas is found in chronic schizophrenia (SZ). However, whether this reduced lateralization exists at the early stage of SZ remains unclear. The present study aimed to investigate language lateralization in first episode schizophrenia (FES) using near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) during a letter version of verbal fluency test (VFT).
A total of 28 FES patients and 33 healthy controls (HCs) underwent NIRS while performing a VFT. Six regions of interests (ROIs) were defined: the bilateral frontal-, inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), and temporal regions. Laterality index (LI) was calculated and compared between the two groups in ROIs. In addition, we investigated whether language lateralization was correlated with severity of clinical symptoms.
Across all ROIs, LI was significantly reduced in FES patients (p=0.037) compared to controls in the IFG region. In addition, LI was not found to be correlated with VFT performance, the PANSS positive, negative or general psychopathology subscales.
Our study demonstrated a diminution of leftward functional lateralization in the IFG during a VFT in FES patients. This is the first NIRS study to report reduced functional lateralization in patients at the early stage of schizophrenia.
慢性精神分裂症（SZ）患者语言相关区域的功能偏侧化减弱。然而，这种偏侧化减弱在SZ早期是否存在仍不清楚。本研究旨在利用近红外光谱技术（NIRS）在字母版言语流畅性测试（VFT）期间，研究首发精神分裂症（FES）患者的语言偏侧化情况。
28例FES患者和33名健康对照者（HCs）在进行VFT时接受NIRS检测。定义了六个感兴趣区域（ROIs）：双侧额叶、额下回（IFG）和颞叶区域。计算两组在ROIs中的偏侧化指数（LI）并进行比较。此外，我们研究了语言偏侧化是否与临床症状严重程度相关。
在所有ROIs中，与对照组相比，FES患者的LI在IFG区域显著降低（p = 0.037）。此外，未发现LI与VFT表现、阳性和阴性症状量表（PANSS）的阳性、阴性或一般精神病理学分量表相关。
我们的研究表明，FES患者在VFT期间IFG的左侧功能偏侧化减弱。这是第一项报道精神分裂症早期患者功能偏侧化降低的NIRS研究。
