The present study investigated differences in white matter (WM) integrity between 96 young people with affective and/or psychotic symptoms classified at an early stage of mental disorder (i.e. 'attenuated syndrome'; stage 1b), 85 young people classified at a more advanced stage of mental disorder (i.e. 'discrete disorder'; stage 2), and 81 demographically matched healthy controls using diffusion tensor imaging. The relationship between WM integrity (indexed by fractional anisotropy; FA) across the tracts and neuropsychological functioning was also investigated. A significant reduction in FA was identified in those with more advanced disorder in the body of the corpus callosum. Clinical stage groups were associated with significant neuropsychological impairment, which was significantly greater in those with discrete disorders. Compared to those in the earlier stage of disorder, participants at the later clinical stage showed decreased FA in the body of the corpus callosum that was associated with worse performance in attentional set formation maintenance, shifting and flexibility. These results provide further support for clinical staging of mental disorder and highlight the potential for utilising neuroanatomical biomarkers to support the classification of stages of mental disorder in the future.

中文翻译：

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根据青年精神障碍阶段的白质完整性

本研究调查了 96 名具有情感和/或精神病症状的青年人之间的白质 (WM) 完整性差异，这些年轻人被归类为精神障碍的早期阶段（即“减毒综合征”；阶段 1b），85 名年轻人被归类为更晚期精神障碍阶段（即“离散障碍”；第 2 阶段），以及使用扩散张量成像的 81 名人口统计学匹配的健康对照。还研究了跨区域的 WM 完整性（由分数各向异性指数；FA）与神经心理功能之间的关系。在胼胝体中患有更晚期疾病的患者中发现 FA 显着减少。临床分期组与显着的神经心理障碍相关，在具有离散障碍的患者中明显更大。与疾病早期阶段的参与者相比，晚期临床阶段的参与者胼胝体体内 FA 减少，这与注意力集形成维持、转移和灵活性的表现较差有关。这些结果为精神障碍的临床分期提供了进一步的支持，并强调了利用神经解剖学生物标志物来支持未来精神障碍分期分类的潜力。