EUROPEAN NEUROPSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY, cilt.70, ss.72-80, 2023 (SCI-Expanded)
Both structural and functional alterations in the retina and the choroid of the eye, as parts of the central nervous system, have been shown in psychotic disorders, especially in schizophre-nia. In addition, genetic and imaging studies indicate vascular and angiogenesis anomalies in the psychosis spectrum disorders. In this ocular imaging study, choroidal structure and vascular-ity were investigated using enhanced depth imaging (EDI) optical coherence tomography (OCT) in first-episode psychosis (FEP), ultra-high risk for psychosis (UHR-P), and age-and gender -matched healthy controls (HCs). There were no significant differences between groups in cen-tral choroidal thickness, stromal choroidal area (SCA), luminal choroidal area (LCA) and total subfoveal choroidal area. The LCA/SCA ratio ( p < 0.001) and the choroidal vascularity index (CVI) ( p < 0.001) were significantly different between FEP, UHR-P and HCs. CVI and LCA/SCA ra-tio were significantly higher in patients with FEP compared to help-seeking youth at UHR-P. CVI and LCA/SCA ratio were not different between UHR-P and HCs. However, CVI was higher in UHR-P compared to HCs after excluding the outliers for the sensitivity analysis ( p = 0.002). Current findings suggest that choroidal thickness is normal, but there are abnormalities in choroidal microvasculature in prodromal and first-episode psychosis. Further longitudinal studies are needed to investigate oculomics, especially CVI, as a promising biomarker for the prediction of conversion to psychosis in individuals at clinical high-risk.(c) 2023 Elsevier B.V. and ECNP. All rights reserved.