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Neuropsychopathological Factor May Underlie Multiple Psychiatric Disorders
Researchers have found a neuropsychopathological (NP) factor associated with the prefrontal cortex from adolescence to young adulthood that may underlie multiple psychiatric disorders, according to a recent study published online ahead of print in Nature Medicine.
“The NP factor could bridge the genetic substrates of neurodevelopmental processes and higher-order cognitive deficits,” said lead author Chao Xie, PhD, Institute of Science and Technology for Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Fudan University, Shanghai, China, and co-authors. “These results demonstrated that the NP factor could serve as a reliable neuropsychopathological biomarker of psychiatric comorbidity, substantially advancing our knowledge in stratified psychiatric medicine.”
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The study involved 1109 participants from the IMAGEN cohort, who were followed from the ages of 14 to 23 years old. The researchers used data from multiple sources, including self-reports of psychiatric symptoms, cognitive tests, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans, to create multitask connectomes reflecting functional connectivity between brain regions involved in various cognitive tasks. Researchers then used factor analysis to identify a common factor underlying externalizing and internalizing symptoms.
The researchers found that this neuropsychopathological (NP) factor was associated with delayed prefrontal cortex development and was partially genetically determined, suggesting that it may be a heritable risk factor for psychiatric disorders. The study also demonstrated that this NP factor was reproducible in multiple developmental periods, from preadolescence to early adulthood.
“Although we focused on a general neuropsychopathology in this study, factors of other more specific forms of psychopathology (such as externalizing, internalizing, and thought disorder psychopathologies) should also play essential roles,” authors recommended. “Therefore, future studies are required to elucidate the dynamic interaction between the general and specific neuropsychopathologies that may further contribute to the development of psychiatric comorbidity.”
However, the study has some limitations. For example, the sample was predominantly European and may not generalize to other populations. Furthermore, the study focused on externalizing and internalizing symptoms and did not investigate other psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
“More rigorous experimental studies are needed to clarify the causal mechanisms underlying this NP factor,” authors concluded.
