ArticlePsychological medicine2021
Brain free water alterations in first-episode psychosis: a longitudinal analysis of diagnosis, course of illness, and medication effects.
Article in Psychological medicine, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 26 citations in OpenAlex.
- White Matter Tract Alterations in Bipolar Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Diffusion Tensor Imaging Studies.Brain and behavior · 2026Pooled it
- Disentangling white matter correlates of symptom severity and general impairment in early psychosis.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Differential effect of cannabis use and antipsychotic medication on extracellular free-water in the brain of individuals with early psychosis and controls.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Reduced glymphatic clearance in early psychosis.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Article
- Decoding Early Psychoses: Unraveling Stable Microstructural Features Associated With Psychopathology Across Independent Cohorts.Biological psychiatry · 2025Article
- Elevated Extracellular Free Water in the Brain Predicts Clinical Improvement in First-Episode Psychosis.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2025Article
- Poor self-reported sleep is associated with prolonged white matter T2 relaxation in psychotic disorders.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- Shared and distinct white matter abnormalities in adolescent-onset schizophrenia and adolescent-onset psychotic bipolar disorder.Psychological medicine · 2023Article
- Characterization of the extracellular free water signal in schizophrenia using multi-site diffusion MRI harmonization.Molecular psychiatry · 2023Article
- Different patterns of association between white matter microstructure and plasma unsaturated fatty acids in those with high risk for psychosis and healthy participants.General psychiatry · 2022Article
- Free Water Volume Fraction: An Imaging Biomarker to Characterize Moderate-to-Severe Traumatic Brain Injury.Journal of neurotrauma · 2021Article
- A longitudinal analysis of brain extracellular free water in HIV infected individuals.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- The Effects of Peripheral Inflammation on the Brain-A Neuroimaging Perspective.Harvard review of psychiatryArticle
- Neuroimaging in schizophrenia: From group-average abnormalities to individualised circuit models.Science progressReview
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundMultiple lines of evidence suggest the presence of altered neuroimmune processes in patients with schizophrenia (Sz) and severe mood disorders. Recent studies using a novel free water diffusion tensor imaging (FW DTI) approach, proposed as a putative biomarker of neuroinflammation, atrophy, or edema, have shown significantly increased FW in patients with Sz. However no studies to date have investigated the longitudinal stability of FW alterations during the early course of psychosis, nor have studies focused separately on FE psychosis patients with Sz or bipolar disorder (BD) with psychotic features.
methodsThe current study included 188 participants who underwent diffusion magnetic resonance imaging scanning at baseline. Sixty-four participants underwent follow-up rescanning after 12 months. DTI-based alterations in patients were calculated using voxelwise tract-based spatial statistics and region of interest analyses.
resultsPatients with FE psychosis, both Sz and BD, exhibited increased FW at illness onset which remained unchanged over the 12-month follow-up period. Preliminary analyses suggested that antipsychotic medication exposure was associated with higher FW in gray matter that reached significance in the BD group. Higher FW in white matter correlated with negative symptom severity.
conclusionsOur results support the presence of elevated FW at the onset of psychosis in both Sz and BD, which remains stable during the early course of the illness, with no evidence of either progression or remission.
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