Mihaljevic Marina, Chang Yu-Ho, Witmer Ashley M, Coughlin Jennifer M, Schretlen David J, Barker Peter B, Yang Kun, Sawa Akira
Departments of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Schizophrenia (Heidelb). 2024 Mar 1;10(1):29. doi: 10.1038/s41537-024-00451-7.
Understanding the biological underpinning of relapse could improve the outcomes of patients with psychosis. Relapse is elicited by multiple reasons/triggers, but the consequence frequently accompanies deteriorations of brain function, leading to poor prognosis. Structural brain imaging studies have recently been pioneered to address this question, but a lack of molecular investigations is a knowledge gap. Following a criterion used for recent publications by others, we defined the experiences of relapse by hospitalization(s) due to psychotic exacerbation. We hypothesized that relapse-associated molecules might be underscored from the neurometabolites whose levels have been different between overall patients with early-stage psychosis and healthy subjects in our previous report. In the present study, we observed a significant decrease in the levels of N-acetyl aspartate in the anterior cingulate cortex and thalamus in patients who experienced relapse compared to patients who did not. Altogether, decreased N-acetyl aspartate levels may indicate relapse-associated deterioration of neuronal networks in patients.
了解复发的生物学基础有助于改善精神病患者的治疗效果。复发由多种原因/触发因素引起，但其后果往往伴随着脑功能的恶化，导致预后不良。近期已有针对这一问题的脑结构成像研究，但缺乏分子层面的研究仍是知识空白。按照他人近期发表文章所采用的标准，我们将因精神病性发作而住院的经历定义为复发。我们推测，复发相关分子可能存在于神经代谢物中，在我们之前的报告中，早期精神病患者与健康受试者的这些神经代谢物水平存在差异。在本研究中，我们观察到，与未经历复发的患者相比，经历复发的患者前扣带回皮质和丘脑的N-乙酰天门冬氨酸水平显著降低。总之，N-乙酰天门冬氨酸水平降低可能表明患者神经元网络出现了与复发相关的恶化。
