ArticleBiological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging2026
Microstructural Alterations of the Cerebellum-Ventral Tegmental Area Pathways in First-Episode Psychosis.
Article in Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe cerebellum plays a critical role in higher-order cognition and motivation, in part through its direct projections to dopaminergic midbrain structures such as the ventral tegmental area (VTA). Although cerebellar dysconnectivity is a robust feature of schizophrenia, the microstructural tissue properties of cerebellar-VTA white matter pathways have not been examined in first-episode psychosis (FEP).
methodsWe used diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging and probabilistic tractography to reconstruct cerebellar-VTA pathways in 46 participants with FEP and 30 healthy control participants. Cerebellar-VTA tracts (ipsilateral and contralateral) were defined using anatomically informed inclusion and exclusion regions of interest. Mean diffusivity (MD) and fractional anisotropy (FA) were quantified using the diffusional kurtosis model along each tract. Group differences were assessed using generalized additive mixed models, controlling for age, sex, head motion, and medication. Associations between tract properties and cognitive performance from the MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery were evaluated.
resultsPatients with FEP showed significantly lower MD along both ipsilateral and contralateral cerebellar-VTA pathways in both hemispheres, with effects distributed across large portions of each tract. Lower MD in the contralateral cerebellar-VTA pathways was significantly associated with poorer working memory performance in patients, while a similar association for the ipsilateral pathway was observed in the left hemisphere.
conclusionsThis study provides the first evidence that cerebellar-VTA white matter pathways are microstructurally altered at the early stage of psychosis and that these alterations are linked to memory deficits. The results refine models of cerebellar dysconnectivity in schizophrenia by implicating a specific cerebellar midbrain dopaminergic pathway as a potential substrate of cognitive dysfunction.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.