The specificity of the auditory P300 responses and its association with clinical outcomes in youth with psychosis risk syndrome

Yongqing Hou; Guiping Qiu; Haishuo Xia; Tianbao He; Xiaoxian Liu; Antao Chen

doi:10.1016/j.ijchp.2024.100437

The specificity of the auditory P300 responses and its association with clinical outcomes in youth with psychosis risk syndrome

Int J Clin Health Psychol. 2024 Jan-Mar;24(1):100437. doi: 10.1016/j.ijchp.2024.100437. Epub 2024 Jan 11.

Authors

Yongqing Hou^{1

2}, Guiping Qiu³, Haishuo Xia¹, Tianbao He², Xiaoxian Liu⁴, Antao Chen⁵

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality of Ministry of Education, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, China.
² Mental Health Center of Guangyuan, Sichuan, China.
³ College of Teacher Education, Ningxia University, Yinchuan, China.
⁴ Faculty of Education, Henan Normal University, Xinxiang, China.
⁵ School of Psychology, Research Center for Exercise and Brain Science, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, China.

Abstract

Background: Schizophrenia often occurs in youth, and psychosis risk syndrome (PRS) occurs before the onset of psychosis. Assessing the neuropsychological abnormalities of PRS individuals can help in early identification and active intervention of mental illness. Auditory P300 amplitude defect is an important manifestation of attention processing abnormality in PRS, but it is still unclear whether there are abnormalities in the attention processing of rhythmic compound tone stimuli in PRS individuals, and whether the P300 amplitude induced by these stimuli is specific to PRS individuals and related to their clinical outcomes.

Methods: In total, 226 participants, including 122 patients with PRS, 51 patients with emotional disorders (ED), and 53 healthy controls (HC) were assessed. Baseline electroencephalography was recorded during the compound tone oddball task. The event-related potentials (ERPs) induced by rhythmic compound tone stimuli of two frequencies (20-Hz, 40-Hz) were measured. Almost all patients with PRS were followed up for 12 months and reclassified into four groups: PRS-conversion, PRS-symptomatic, PRS-emotional disorder, and PRS-complete remission. The differences in baseline ERPs were compared among the clinical outcome groups.

Results: Regardless of the stimulation frequency, the average P300 amplitude were significantly higher in patients with PRS than in those with ED (p = 0.003, d = 0.48) and in HC (p = 0.002, d = 0.44) group. The average P300 amplitude of PRS-conversion group was significantly higher than that of the PRS-complete remission (p = 0.016, d = 0.72) and HC group (p = 0.001, d = 0.76), and the average P300 amplitude of PRS-symptomatic group was significantly higher than that of the HC group (p = 0.006, d = 0.48). Regardless of the groups (PRS, ED, HC) or the PRS clinical outcome groups, the average P300 amplitude induced by 20-Hz tone stimulation was significantly higher than that induced by 40-Hz stimulation (ps < 0.001, Ƞ² = 0.074-0.082). The average reaction times of PRS was significantly faster than that of ED (p = 0.01, d = 0.38), and the average reaction times of the participants to 20-Hz target stimulation was significantly faster than that to 40-Hz target stimulation (p < 0.001, d = 0.21).

Conclusion: The auditory P300 amplitude induced by rhythmic compound tone stimuli is a specific electrophysiological manifestation of PRS, and the auditory P300 amplitude induced by compound tone stimuli shows promise as a putative prognostic biomarker for PRS clinical outcomes, including conversion to psychosis and clinical complete remission.

Keywords: 40-Hz stimulation; Auditory attention; Oddball paradigm; P300; Psychosis risk syndrome (PRS).