ArticleFrontiers in psychiatry2013
N-Acetyl-Aspartate Level is Decreased in the Prefrontal Cortex in Subjects At-Risk for Schizophrenia.
Article in Frontiers in psychiatry, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 22 citations in OpenAlex.
- N-Acetyl-Aspartate in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in men with schizophrenia and auditory verbal hallucinations: A 1.5 T Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Study.Scientific reports · 2018Trial
- Online Effects of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation in Real Time on Human Prefrontal and Striatal Metabolites.Biological psychiatry · 2016Trial
- Adding Sarcosine to Antipsychotic Treatment in Patients with Stable Schizophrenia Changes the Concentrations of Neuronal and Glial Metabolites in the Left Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex.International journal of molecular sciences · 2015Trial
- Glutamate, NAA, and energy metabolism in clinical high risk and first episode psychosis.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Biomarkers for Psychosis: Are We There Yet? Umbrella Review of 1478 Biomarkers.Schizophrenia bulletin open · 2024Article
- Differential effects of cannabis constituents on schizophrenia-related psychosis: a rationale for incorporating cannabidiol into a schizophrenia therapeutic regimen.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Review
- N-Acetylaspartate and Choline Metabolites in Cortical and Subcortical Regions in Clinical High Risk Relative to Healthy Control Subjects: An Exploratory 7T MRSI Study.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Article
- Metabolite Alternations in the Dopamine Circuit Associated with Methamphetamine-Related Psychotic Symptoms: A Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Study.Iranian journal of psychiatry · 2022Article
- Abnormal neurobiochemical metabolites in the firstZhong nan da xue xue bao. Yi xue ban = Journal of Central South University. Medical sciences · 2021Article
- Metabolomics-A Promising Approach to Pituitary Adenomas.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2018Review
- Observational
- Altering the course of schizophrenia: progress and perspectives.Nature reviews. Drug discovery · 2016Review
- Prefrontal NAA and Glx Levels in Different Stages of Psychotic Disorders: a 3T 1H-MRS Study.Scientific reports · 2016Article
- Neuroimaging Biomarkers for Psychosis.Current behavioral neuroscience reports · 2015Article
- Making the White Matter Matters: Progress in Understanding Canavan's Disease and Therapeutic Interventions Through Eight Decades.JIMD reports · 2015Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Reduced N-acetyl-aspartate (NAA) levels have been reported in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in patients with schizophrenia using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy. However, it is unclear whether this NAA reduction predates the illness onset and is reported in subjects at-risk for developing schizophrenia (HRS). The aim of this study was to assess NAA levels in the PFC in HRS. We hypothesized that HRS display lower NAA levels than healthy controls in the PFC. Studies assessing levels of NAA/Creatine (NAA/Cr) in the PFC in HRS were extracted from literature. Meta-analysis tools were used to compute effect sizes of nine selected studies meeting our inclusion criteria (clinical and/or genetic HRS, groups of HRS, and healthy controls matched for age and gender, spectral acquisition in the PFC). We reported that HRS exhibited a significant lower NAA/Cr level (2.15 ± 0.29; n = 208) than healthy controls (2.21 ± 0.32; n = 234) in the PFC with a medium pooled effect size [Hedges's g = -0.42; 95% confidence interval: (-0.61; -0.23); p < 0.0001] corresponding to an average 5.7% of NAA/Cr decrease. Secondary analysis revealed that this reduction was observed in young HRS (<40 years old) who have not reached the peak age of risk for schizophrenia (-11%, g = -0.82, p < 0.00001) but not in old HRS (>40 years old) who have already passed the peak age (g = 0.11, p = 0.56), when they are compared with their matched healthy controls. Our findings suggest that the NAA/Cr reduction in the PFC reported in patients with schizophrenia is observable only in HRS who have not passed the peak age of risk for schizophrenia. NAA/Cr level in the PFC could therefore be considered as a biological vulnerability marker of schizophrenia.
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