ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Schizophrenia
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1596991
Altered Cortical Thickness associated with Psychotic Symptoms and Cognitive Profiles in Involuntarily Hospitalized, First-Episode, Drug-Naive Patients with Schizophrenia
Provisionally accepted
- Nanjing Brain Hospital Affiliated to Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China
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Objective: This study aims to explore the cognitive impairment characteristics, psychotic symptoms, and the relationship with alterations in cortical thickness in involuntarily hospitalized, first-episode, drug-naive schizophrenia patients. Methods: A total of 59 involuntarily hospitalized patients and 60 healthy controls were included. The MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB) scale was used to evaluate cognitive function in involuntarily hospitalized patients and healthy controls. The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) was utilized to evaluate psychotic symptoms in involuntarily hospitalized patients. Structural MRI scans were obtained from all participants, and the Desikan-Killiany template was used in FreeSurfer software to extract the cortical thickness values. Results: Involuntarily hospitalized patients exhibited cognitive impairments across seven cognitive domains compared to healthy controls. Additionally, these patients exhibited increased cortical thickness in the right temporal pole, left posterior cingulate gyrus, and left temporal pole compared to controls. Partial correlation analysis revealed that in the involuntarily hospitalized patients, the left posterior cingulate gyrus had a negative correlation with general symptoms, while the right temporal pole showed a positive correlation with negative symptoms. No correlation was found between cortical thickness and cognitive function in patients with involuntary hospitalization. In contrast, within the healthy control group, both the left and right temporal poles exhibited positive correlations with reasoning and problem-solving abilities. Conclusions: Our study reveals significant cognitive impairments and cortical thickness alterations in first-episode, drug-naive schizophrenia patients during their initial involuntary hospitalization. These cortical thickness alterations were significantly associated with psychotic symptoms, but not cognitive impairment. These findings suggest that cognitive dysfunction and symptom presentation in early-stage schizophrenia patients with involuntary hospitalization may be influenced by distinct neuroanatomical mechanisms.
Keywords: Schizophrenia, Involuntary hospitalization, Drug-naive, first-episode, cognitive, cortical thickness, psychotic symptoms
Received: 20 Mar 2025; Accepted: 05 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Tang, Zhang, Fang, Shen, Zuo, Ni, Yan, Zhang and Xie. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Shiping Xie, Nanjing Brain Hospital Affiliated to Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China
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