What prevents youth at clinical high risk for psychosis from engaging in physical activity? An examination of the barriers to physical activity.

Background: Exercise has increasingly been proposed as a healthful intervention prior to and after the onset of psychosis. There is some evidence to suggest that youth at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis are less physically active and report more barriers to engaging in exercise; however, there has been relatively limited empirical work documenting this phenomenon, and to date, relationships between physical activity, barriers, and clinical phenomenology have been unclear.

Methods: CHR (N = 51) and healthy control (N = 37) participants completed a structured clinical interview assessing attenuated psychotic symptoms and substance use, and an exercise survey that assessed current exercise practices, perceived physical fitness, and barriers related to engaging in exercise.

A Supervised Exercise Intervention for Youth at Risk for Psychosis: An Open-Label Pilot Study.

Objective: A rapidly accumulating body of research suggests that exercise can improve symptoms and well-being in patients suffering from psychosis. Exercise may also promote neurogenesis in the hippocampus, a structure that plays an important role in the pathophysiology of psychosis. To date, there has not been an intervention focused on exercise prior to the onset of psychosis, a critical time for prevention of more serious illness.

Motion energy analysis reveals altered body movement in youth at risk for psychosis.

Background: Growing evidence suggests that movement abnormalities occur prior to the onset of psychosis. Innovations in technology and software provide the opportunity for a fine-tuned and sensitive measurement of observable behavior that may be particularly useful to detecting the subtle movement aberrations present during the prodromal period.

Methods: In the present study, 54 youth at ultrahigh risk (UHR) for psychosis and 62 healthy controls participated in structured clinical interviews to assess for an UHR syndrome.

Patients with schizophrenia show aberrant patterns of basal ganglia activation: Evidence from ALE meta-analysis.

The diverse circuits and functional contributions of the basal ganglia, coupled with known differences in dopaminergic function in patients with schizophrenia, suggest they may be an important contributor to the etiology of the hallmark symptoms and cognitive dysfunction experienced by these patients. Using activation-likelihood-estimation meta-analysis of functional imaging research, we investigated differences in activation patterns in the basal ganglia in patients with schizophrenia, relative to healthy controls across task domains. This analysis included 42 functional neuroimaging studies, representing a variety of behavioral domains that have been linked to basal ganglia function in prior work.

Social relationships in young adults at ultra high risk for psychosis.

Studies suggest that individuals with schizophrenia have smaller social networks and less satisfying relationships. However, much is still unknown about the typical quantity and quality of social relationships in young adults during the ultra high-risk (UHR) period. Investigating these relationships holds significant importance for improving understanding of etiological processes, mapping the social environment, and highlighting treatment targets in a critical period.

Disruptions in neural connectivity associated with reduced susceptibility to a depth inversion illusion in youth at ultra high risk for psychosis.

Patients with psychosis exhibit a reduced susceptibility to depth inversion illusions (DII) in which a physically concave surface is perceived as convex (e.g., the hollow mask illusion).

Motor behavior reflects reduced hemispheric asymmetry in the psychosis risk period.

Background: A body of work focusing on brain connectivity, language dominance, and motor laterality research suggests that reduced hemispheric asymmetry is a core feature in schizophrenia. However, there is little consensus about whether reduced dominance is present in those at ultrahigh risk (UHR) for psychosis.

Methods: A total of 94 demonstrated right-handed neuroleptic free participants (38 UHR and 56 matched healthy controls) were assessed with structured clinical interviews and completed an innovative handwriting task using a digital tablet computer.