Investigating the retinovasculature as a gateway to understanding psychosis
OA Version
Citation
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Previous studies have primarily investigated retinovascular changes in the macula of individuals with psychosis, with few studies examining early course psychosis (ECP) and no studies examining widefield views of the macula. This study aims to explore retinovascular changes in ECP using widefield retinal imaging and to investigate their relationship with clinical/cognitive domains.
METHODS: ECP (n=23) and healthy controls (HC, n=15) underwent widefield (up to 6mm) swept source optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) imaging (Zeiss Plex Elite 9000) for both eyes (OU) (right [OD], left [OS]) for full retinal, superficial, and deep layers, as well as the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia (BACS). Images were processed with Zeiss’ Advanced Research and Innovation Network algorithm. Retinovasculature was compared between groups using general linear models for vessel density (VD) and perfusion density (PD), with a significance threshold of p<0.1. Partial Spearman correlations were conducted between retinovascular and clinical/cognitive measures.
RESULTS: In ECP, significantly lower OU VD and PD were observed compared to HCs within the inner ring and 3 mm circular region in superficial and deep layers, and this effect was primarily observed in OD. Significantly smaller VD and PD was observed in the deep central area in OU and OS in the ECP vs. HC group. In ECP, smaller deep central VD in OU was significantly associated with increased verbal memory scores while lower superficial VD and PD in inner ring and 3 mm circular regions in OD were correlated with poorer executive function. Orthogonal effects were also found between the ECP and HC groups, when comparing their BACS adjusted scores. In the ECP group, lower superficial and deep VD and PD was associated with better cognitive performance.
CONCLUSIONS: Lower widefield retinovascular measures exist in ECP, and perfusion in the superficial or deep layers of the eye are associated with opposing cognitive observations. These findings suggest that while retinovascular measures are lower in superficial and deep layers of the eye, they have differential relationships with cognition with the superficial layer potentially being a marker of poorer cognitive performance in ECP.
Description
2024
License
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International