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Multimodal Brain and Behavior Indices of Psychosis Risk

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The Neuropsychopathology of Schizophrenia

Part of the book series: Nebraska Symposium on Motivation ((NSM,volume 63))

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Abstract

The search for neural-based accounts of psychosis has initially applied neuropsychological measures based on the clinical-pathological correlation methodology. Specific behavioral disturbances were linked to brain systems through the study of patients with brain disorders, and psychological tests of these behavioral domains have been used in the diagnosis of such disorders, validated against post-mortem data or neurological signs. The advent of neuroimaging produced a paradigm shift in behavioral measures linkable to brain systems, because they provided in vivo parameters of brain structure and function. Structural measures enabled greater precision of localizing brain systems involved in behavioral disorders. Functional neuroimaging created the ability to probe recruitment of brain regions in response to carefully controlled behavioral task demands. Such “neurobehavioral probes” had to be computerized to fit scanning conditions—stimulus and response onset have to be yoked to scanner operations and you cannot easily shuffle papers and pencils in a scanner—a feature that made them poised for inclusion in large-scale studies required by the transitions in genomic research. Studies comparing phenotypically based disease classifications (case-control designs) had some spectacular successes but for few diseases, while for most disorders a more fruitful approach was to examine continuous “endophenotypes” or “biomarkers” that can be mechanistically linked to gene action. Such genomic studies require large sample sizes, and the increased affordability of neuroimaging and computerized neurocognitive measures allowed us to add the brain and its product, behavior, to the genomic revolution that is impacting all other organ systems. Multimodal neuroimaging parameters combined with behavioral measures offer powerful tools for elucidating the neurobiology of behavior and establishing indices of vulnerability to neuropsychiatric disorders. This chapter will present the process as exemplified in our efforts to understand neural substrates for psychosis risk.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health grants MH087626, MH087636, MH089983, MH089924, MH107235, and the Dowshen Neuroscience Program. I am grateful to many faculties, fellows, other trainees, and research team members of the Schizophrenia Research Center and the Brain Behavior Laboratory at Penn Medicine and the Center for Applied Genomics at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Special thanks to the research participants and their parents for their efforts.

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  1. Brain Behavior Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, 3400 Spruce Street, 10t Floor Gates Pavilion, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA

    Ruben C. Gur

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Correspondence to Ruben C. Gur .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA

    Ming Li

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA

    William D. Spaulding

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Gur, R.C. (2016). Multimodal Brain and Behavior Indices of Psychosis Risk. In: Li, M., Spaulding, W. (eds) The Neuropsychopathology of Schizophrenia. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, vol 63. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30596-7_7

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