ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Schizophrenia
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1635854
This article is part of the Research TopicCognitive impairments in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression: Dissecting common and divergent featuresView all 10 articles
Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) as a diagnostic aid for stable schizophrenia
Provisionally accepted
- 1Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai, China
- 2Shanghai Changning Mental Health Center, Shanghai, China
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Objective: Cognitive impairment in schizophrenia (SCZ) is common, but the mechanism remains unclear. This study aimed to investigate whether brain activation during the functional near‑infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) verbal fluency test (VFT) task is associated with cognitive deficits and to evaluate the reliability of fNIRS as a clinical tool for diagnosing stable SCZ. Methods: A total of 45 stable SCZ patients and 30 healthy controls (HC) were included. Demographic information, Positive and Negative Symptom Scale (PANSS), and MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB) were assessed. During VFT, hemodynamic responses in the frontotemporal cortex were monitored with fNIRS. Results: During VFT, individuals with SCZ demonstrated a reduced number of valid words, lower β value in channel 8, 25-26, 35-36 and 47-48, and decreased integral value (IV) in both the prefrontal lobe and bilateral temporal lobes. IV of the temporal lobes and the β value of channel 48 demonstrated sensitivity for diagnosis of SCZ, with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.781 (95% CI: 0.667-0.896), and 0.762 (95% CI: 0.655-0.869), respectively. Moreover, IV of the temporal lobes correlated positively with multi-domain of cognition, including speed of processing, attention/vigilance, social cognition and MCCB total scores. The β value of channel 48 correlated positively with speed of processing. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that fNIRS may serve as a valuable clinical measure of cognition assessment, and IV of bilateral temporal lobes and β value of channel 48 can be used as candidate biomarkers to differentiate individuals with schizophrenia.
Keywords: Schizophrenia, Cognition, diagnosis, fNIRS, VFT
Received: 27 May 2025; Accepted: 18 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhang, Li, Chen, Cong, Kuai and Mu. 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: Yonggang Mu, Shanghai Changning Mental Health Center, Shanghai, China
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