Associations between psychosis risk and striatum-related behavioral tasks

Previous research has robustly demonstrated that florid psychosis is related to increased dorsal striatal dopamine. Yet, it is still unclear whether striatal dysfunction can be used as a marker of psychosis risk. A few previous studies have found psychosis risk is associated with performance on striatum-related behavioral tasks that are sensitive to dopamine. However, a limitation of these tasks is that they may not be useful in clinical contexts (e.g., they are challenging for people of varying ability to complete successfully). The current study uses shorter and simpler tasks to further examine associations between psychosis risk and task performance. In college students, psychosis risk was assessed by a combination of extreme psychosis risk questionnaire scores plus interview evidence of attenuated psychotic symptoms (Chapman et al., 1994; Miller et al., 2003), through administration of the Structured Interview for Prodromal Syndromes (SIPS; Miller et al., 2003). Participants completed computer-based tasks involving learning from positive and negative feedback and which are sensitive to alterations in levels of striatal dopamine. They also completed tasks involving cognitive flexibility and stopping a prepotent response. In general, psychosis risk was associated with performance on striatum-related tasks, with participants at higher levels of psychosis risk having poorer learning from positive feedback compared to controls. It is ultimately hoped that this research will help us better predict and understand the nature of psychosis risk.