Anomalies in language as a biomarker for schizophrenia

Abstract

Purpose of review After more than a century of neuroscience research, reproducible, clinically relevant biomarkers for schizophrenia have not yet been established. This article reviews current advances in evaluating the use of language as a diagnostic or prognostic tool in schizophrenia. Recent findings The development of computational linguistic tools to quantify language disturbances is rapidly gaining ground in the field of schizophrenia research. Current applications are the use of semantic space models and acoustic analyses focused on phonetic markers. These features are used in machine learning models to distinguish patients with schizophrenia from healthy controls or to predict conversion to psychosis in high-risk groups, reaching accuracy scores (generally ranging from 80 to 90%) that exceed clinical raters. Other potential applications for a language biomarker in schizophrenia are monitoring of side effects, differential diagnostics and relapse prevention. Summary Language disturbances are a key feature of schizophrenia. Although in its early stages, the emerging field of research focused on computational linguistics suggests an important role for language analyses in the diagnosis and prognosis of schizophrenia. Spoken language as a biomarker for schizophrenia has important advantages because it can be objectively and reproducibly quantified. Furthermore, language analyses are low-cost, time efficient and noninvasive in nature.

Language disturbances in schizophrenia: the relation with antipsychotic medication

“…We recognize and appreciate that there are several other approaches to quantify language disturbance in schizophrenia 33 . In the last decade, natural language processing analyses, specifically semantic space analyses and phonetic or prosodic methods, have been applied to language production in schizophrenia [62][63][64][65][66] .…”

“…increased pauses and slower speech rate) in patients with schizophrenia that use high D2R occupancy medication than in those using low D2R occupancy medication. In the present study, we set out to test this hypothesis by comparing spoken language samples of schizophrenia patients on language variables that are known to be disturbed in schizophrenia 6,30,31,33 (see Table 1 for an overview). Patients were divided into two categories based on dopamine binding profiles, namely patients with low D2R occupancy drugs (i.e.…”

Acoustic speech markers for schizophrenia-spectrum disorders: a diagnostic and symptom-recognition tool

“…Moreover, persistent negative symptoms are strongly related to functional outcomes (Lin et al, 2013;Milev, Ho, Arndt, & Andreasen, 2005), further highlighting the need for a reliable distinction between subtypes. From a scientific perspective, reliable identification of relevant subgroups of patients is highly important because the neurobiological underpinnings of their disorders are likely different (Cuthbert & Insel, 2013;Insel, 2014). Consider a patient with grandiose delusions, hallucinations, pressured speech and derailment, v. a patient who presents with social withdrawal, alogia and catatonia: although both patients could be classified as having schizophrenia, the processes underlying these clinically non-overlapping symptom-collections might be entirely different.…”

Language in schizophrenia: relation with diagnosis, symptomatology and white matter tracts

“…Kraepelin identified a subgroup of patients with severe confusion of speech, a symptom he described as "schizophasia", characterized by "an unusually striking disorder of expression in speech, with relatively little impairment of the remaining psychic activities" 1 . Indeed, there is abundant evidence that language disorder is a key symptom of schizophrenia [2][3][4][5][6] . We aim to study the relation between language disturbances and schizophrenia, its symptomatology, and the underlying neurobiology.…”