IMPORTANCE Increased glutamate levels in the right associative striatum have been described in patients during a first episode of psychosis. Whether this increase would persist after effective antipsychotic treatment is unknown. OBJECTIVES To compare the glutamate levels in antipsychotic-naive patients with first-episode psychosis in the right associative striatum and right cerebellar cortex using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy before and 4 weeks after antipsychotic treatment and to compare these results with normative data from sex-matched healthy control subjects. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Before-after trial in an inpatient psychiatric research unit among 24 antipsychotic-naive patients with first-episode psychosis and 18 healthy controls matched for age, sex, handedness, and cigarette smoking. INTERVENTIONS Participants underwent 2 proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy studies: patients were imaged at baseline and after 4 weeks of antipsychotic treatment, while controls were imaged at baseline and at 4 weeks after the baseline measurement. Patients were treated with oral risperidone (open label) for 4 weeks with dosages that were titrated on the basis of clinical judgment. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Glutamate levels were estimated using LCModel (version 6.2-1T) and were corrected for the cerebrospinal fluid proportion within the voxel. RESULTS Patients with first-episode psychosis had higher levels of glutamate in the associative striatum and the cerebellum during the antipsychotic-naive condition compared with controls. After clinically effective antipsychotic treatment, glutamate levels significantly decreased in the associative striatum, with no significant change in the cerebellum. No differences in glutamate levels were observed between groups at 4 weeks. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Increased glutamate levels observed at baseline in patients with first-episode psychosis normalized after 4 weeks of clinically effective antipsychotic treatment. These results provide support for the hypothesis that improvement in clinical symptoms might be related to a decrease in glutamate levels.

Increased glutamate levels in the associative-striatum have been described in subjects at ultra-high risk for psychosis (UHR); nevertheless, it is unclear whether this abnormality predicts the conversion to psychosis. Nineteen subjects at UHR and 26 controls were studied using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Subjects at UHR were clinically followed for 2 yr. Seven UHR subjects (37%) transitioned to a psychotic disorder and the remaining 12 did not exhibit psychotic symptoms at the most recent follow-up. The psychosis transition group had higher glutamate levels compared to both non-transition and control groups (p = 0.02 and p < 0.01, respectively; effect size 1.39). These pilot findings suggest that the conversion to psychosis is associated with increased glutamate levels in the associative-striatum.

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Introduction Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) studies in patients with schizophrenia have shown abnormalities in the microstructure of white matter tracts. Specifically, reduced fractional anisotropy (FA) has been described across multiple white matter tracts, in studies that have mainly included patients treated with antipsychotic medications. Objective To compare FA in antipsychotic-naïve patients experiencing a first episode of psychosis (FEP) to FA in healthy controls to demonstrate that the variance of FA can be grouped, in a coincidental manner, in four predetermined factors in accordance with a theoretical partition of the white matter tracts, using a principal components analysis (PCA). Methods Thirty-five antipsychotic-naïve FEP patients and 35 age- and gender-matched healthy controls underwent DTI at 3T. Analysis was performed using a tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) method and exploratory PCA. Results DTI analysis showed extensive FA reduction in white matter tracts in FEP patients compared with the control group. The PCA grouped the white matter tracts into four factors explaining 66% of the total variance. Comparison of the FA values within each factor highlighted the differences between FEP patients and controls. Discussion Our study confirms extensive white matter tracts anomalies in patients with schizophrenia, more specifically, in drug-naïve FEP patients. The results also indicate that a small number of white matter tracts share common FA anomalies that relate to deficit symptoms in FEP patients. Our study adds to a growing body of literature emphasizing the need for treatments targeting white matter function and structure in FEP patients.

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