Striatal abnormalities and spontaneous dyskinesias in non-clinical psychosis.

Background: Accumulating evidence suggests that individuals experiencing non-clinical psychosis (NCP) represent a critical group for improving understanding of etiological factors underlying the broader psychosis continuum. Although a wealth of evidence supports widespread neural dysfunction in formal psychosis, there has been little empirical evidence to inform our understanding of putative vulnerability markers or brain structure in NCP. In this study, we examined the neural correlates of spontaneous movement abnormalities, a biomarker previously detected in NCP that is linked to abnormalities in the striatal dopamine.

Emotion recognition and social/role dysfunction in non-clinical psychosis.

As researchers continue to understand non-clinical psychosis (NCP-brief psychotic-like experiences occurring in 5-7% of the general population; van Os et al., 2009), it is becoming evident that functioning deficits and facial emotion recognition (FER) impairment characterize this phenomenon. However, the extent to which these domains are related remains unclear.

BDNF Val66Met and spontaneous dyskinesias in non-clinical psychosis.

Background: Evidence indicating that symptoms of non-clinical psychosis (NCP) occur in 6-8% of the general population suggests that psychosis may occur across a continuum. Although a number of studies have examined environmental contributors, to date there have been few investigations of biological/genetic factors in this integral population. A recent study observed spontaneous dyskinetic movements (reflecting an innervated striatal system) in individuals reporting NCP.