Identifying biomarkers of serious mental illness, such as altered white matter microstructure, can aid in early diagnosis and treatment. White matter microstructure was assessed using constrained spherical deconvolution of diffusion imaging data in a sample of 219 youth (age 12–25 years, 64.84% female) across 8 sites. Participants were classified as healthy controls (HC; n = 47), familial risk for serious mental illness (n = 31), mild-symptoms (n = 37), attenuated syndromes (n = 66), or discrete disorder (n = 38) based on clinical assessments. Fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) values were derived for the whole brain white matter, forceps minor, anterior cingulate, anterior thalamic radiations (ATR), inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF), and uncinate fasciculus (UF). Linear mixed effects models showed a significant effect of age on MD of the left ATR, left SLF, and left UF, and a significant effect of group on FA for all tracts examined. For most tracts, the discrete disorder group had significantly lower FA than other groups, and the attenuated syndromes group had higher FA compared to HC, with few differences between the remaining groups. White matter differences in MDD are most evident in individuals following illness onset, as few significant differences were observed in the risk phase.

识别严重精神疾病的生物标志物，例如改变的白质微观结构，可有助于早期诊断和治疗。在8个地点的219名青年（12至25岁，女性64.84％）中，使用扩散成像数据的约束球面反褶积对白质的微观结构进行了评估。参与者被分为健康对照（HC; n  = 47），严重精神疾病的家族风险（n  = 31），轻度症状（n  = 37），轻度综合症（n  = 66）或离散性疾病（n = 38）基于临床评估。得出全脑白质，小镊子，前扣带回，前丘脑放射线（ATR），额枕下筋膜下，上纵筋膜（SLF）和未结状筋膜的分数各向异性（FA）和平均扩散率（MD）值（UF）。线性混合效应模型显示了年龄对左ATR，左SLF和左UF的MD的显着影响，以及组对所有检查道对FA的显着影响。在大多数情况下，离散障碍组的FA显着低于其他组，而减毒综合征组的FA则高于HC，其余各组之间的差异很小。在疾病发作后的个体中，MDD中的白质差异最为明显，因为在风险阶段几乎没有观察到显着差异。