Volumetric neural correlates of antisaccade eye movements in first-episode psychosis.
OBJECTIVE
The authors investigated the structural brain correlates of antisaccade performance.


METHODS
Magnetic resonance imaging was used to measure the volumes of the prefrontal, premotor, sensorimotor, and occipitoparietal cortices as well as the caudate, thalamus, cerebellar vermis, and cerebrum in 20 first-episode psychosis patients and 18 healthy comparison subjects. Antisaccades were recorded by using infrared oculography.


RESULTS
Groups significantly differed in terms of antisaccade error rate and amplitude gain and tended to differ in terms of latency but not brain region volumes. Premotor cortex volume predicted antisaccade error rate among comparison subjects. In the patient group, caudate volume was related to latency and amplitude gain. Negative symptoms, independent of structural volumes, predicted error rate.


CONCLUSIONS
These findings point to altered structure-function relationships in first-episode psychosis.
Ettinger
Ulrich
U
Department of Psychology, McGill University, Stewart Biological Sciences Building, 1205 Dr. Penfield Ave., Montreal, Quebec H3A 1B1 Canada. u.ettinger@iop.kcl.ac.uk.
Kumari
Veena
V
Chitnis
Xavier A
XA
Corr
Philip J
PJ
Crawford
Trevor J
TJ
Fannon
Dominic G
DG
O'ceallaigh
Séamus
S
Sumich
Alex L
AL
Doku
Victor C
VC
Sharma
Tonmoy
T
D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009433:Neural Inhibition / Q000502:physiology; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012438:Saccades / Q000502:physiology*; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology