Decreased neural response for facial emotion processing in subjects with high genetic load for schizophrenia.

Background: Patients with schizophrenia show impairment in facial emotion processing which is essential for successful social cognition. Using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), this study aimed to investigate the implicit facial emotion recognition processing in participants with high genetic load for schizophrenia (GHR) as a possible trait marker of developing schizophrenia.

Methods: Block design fMRI of implicit facial emotion processing was used in 20 participants with GHR aged 16-35, and 17 age, sex, and education year-matched healthy controls (HC).

Correction: Increased Intra-Individual Variability of Cognitive Processing in Subjects at Risk Mental State and Schizophrenia Patients.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.

Longitudinal change in neurocognition and its relation to symptomatic and functional changes over 2years in individuals at clinical high-risk for psychosis.

Background: Negative symptoms and functional disability represent the core of schizophrenia and both are associated with cognitive impairments. We explored the course of cognitive change and its relation to symptomatic and functional changes in individuals at clinical high-risk (CHR) for psychosis to identify cognitive indicators of long-term course. Such attempts may offer insight into the pathological changes associated with the development of illness in the prodromal state.

Neurocognitive function as a possible marker for remission from clinical high risk for psychosis.

Background: Recent studies revealed that nonconverters at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis comprise those who later remit from initial CHR state and those who do not remit and continue to have attenuated positive symptoms. CHR subjects who remit symptomatically are comparable to healthy controls for both baseline and longitudinal symptoms. However, the neurocognitive characteristics of this population are still obscure.

Increased intra-individual variability of cognitive processing in subjects at risk mental state and schizophrenia patients.

Intra-individual variability (IIV) has received recent attention as an indicator of the stability of cognitive functioning that may outperform mean performance in reflecting putative neurobiological abnormalities. Increased IIV is regarded as a core deficit in schizophrenia patients; however, whether this deficit is present in the prodromal phase before the onset of schizophrenia has not been well established. In the present study, we investigated IIV using the stop-signal paradigm in at-risk mental state (ARMS) individuals and in schizophrenia patients.

General intellectual functioning as a buffer against theory-of-mind deficits in individuals at ultra-high risk for psychosis.

The influence of neurocognition, including general intelligence, on theory of mind (ToM) among patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorder is controversial. The purpose of the present study was to identify the influences of the non-ToM cognition and general intelligence on ToM performance in individuals at ultra-high risk (UHR) for psychosis. Fifty-five UHR subjects and 58 healthy controls (HCs) completed neurocognitive, verbal, and nonverbal ToM tasks.