Aberrant Salience among Indivduals with At-risk Mental State for Psychosis
Poster B35, Friday, October 21, 11:30 am - 1:00 pm, Le Baron
Noriyuki Ohmuro1,2, Matthew Kempton1, Stefania Tognin1, Gemma Modinos1, Lucia Valmaggia1, Philip McGuire1; 1Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London, UK, 2Tohoku University Hospital, Sendai, Japan
Purpose: Aberrant salience has been suggested to be one of the plausible models to explain the mechanism of developing psychotic symptoms. In the present study, we examined whether aberrant salience predicts the outcome of individuals with at-risk mental state (ARMS). Materials and methods: The computerised White Noise task was administered to 77 subjects with ARMS at baseline and 22 healthy controls (HC). The task had 75 trials and in each, the participants were presented 1 of 3 different types of oral stimuli which equally consisted of only white noise, clear neutral speech embedded with white noise, and white noise with barely audible neutral speech embedded with white noise and they subsequently responded to each by choosing the 1 of 5 types of answers which were (1) I heard something POSITIVE, (2) I heard something NEGATIVE, (3) I heard something NEUTRAL, (4) I heard NOTHING, and (5) NOT SURE. Responses as (1), (2), (3), or (5) to stimuli only containing white noise were defined as hearing “speech illusion” for the index of aberrant salience. Afterwards, the ARMS participants were followed up at the specialised clinic (OASIS). Results: The rate of hearing speech illusion to white noise for the ARMS group was significantly higher than that for the HC (p=0.04). However, the experience of speech illusion did not significantly predict future transition (p=0.61). Conclusion: The current preliminary results imply that the rate of hearing speech illusions can differentiate ARMS and healthy subjects, while this index might merely work as a state marker.
Topic Area: Neurocognition