Discriminant analysis in schizophrenia and healthy subjects using prefrontal activation during frontal lobe tasks: A near-infrared spectroscopy

Azechi, Michiyo; Iwase, Masao; Ikezawa, Koji; Takahashi, Hidetoshi; Canuet, Leonides; Kurimoto, Ryu; Nakahachi, Takayuki; Ishii, Ryouhei; Fukumoto, Motoyuki; Ohi, Kazutaka; Yasuda, Yuka; Kazui, Hiroaki; Hashimoto, Ryota; Takeda, Masatoshi

doi:10.1016/j.schres.2009.10.003

« Previous Next »Schizophrenia Research
Volume 117, Issue 1 , Pages 52-60, March 2010

Discriminant analysis in schizophrenia and healthy subjects using prefrontal activation during frontal lobe tasks: A near-infrared spectroscopy

Michiyo Azechi
- Department of Psychiatry, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Suita, Osaka, Japan
- Corresponding author. Department of Psychiatry, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, D3, 2-2 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka, 565-0871 Japan. Tel.: +81 6 6879 3051; fax: +81 6 6879 3059.
Masao Iwase
- Department of Psychiatry, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Suita, Osaka, Japan
Koji Ikezawa
- Department of Psychiatry, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Suita, Osaka, Japan
Hidetoshi Takahashi
- Department of Psychiatry, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Suita, Osaka, Japan
- CREST (Core Research for Evolutionary Science and Technology), JST (Japan Science and Technology Agency), Kawaguchi, Saitama, Japan
Leonides Canuet
- Department of Psychiatry, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Suita, Osaka, Japan
Ryu Kurimoto
- Department of Psychiatry, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Suita, Osaka, Japan
Takayuki Nakahachi
- Department of Psychiatry, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Suita, Osaka, Japan
Ryouhei Ishii
- Department of Psychiatry, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Suita, Osaka, Japan
Motoyuki Fukumoto
- Department of Psychiatry, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Suita, Osaka, Japan
- CREST (Core Research for Evolutionary Science and Technology), JST (Japan Science and Technology Agency), Kawaguchi, Saitama, Japan
Kazutaka Ohi
- Department of Psychiatry, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Suita, Osaka, Japan
- CREST (Core Research for Evolutionary Science and Technology), JST (Japan Science and Technology Agency), Kawaguchi, Saitama, Japan
Yuka Yasuda
- Department of Psychiatry, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Suita, Osaka, Japan
- The Osaka-Hamamatsu Joint Research Center for Child Mental Development, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Suita, Osaka, Japan
- CREST (Core Research for Evolutionary Science and Technology), JST (Japan Science and Technology Agency), Kawaguchi, Saitama, Japan
Hiroaki Kazui
- Department of Psychiatry, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Suita, Osaka, Japan
Ryota Hashimoto
- Department of Psychiatry, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Suita, Osaka, Japan
- The Osaka-Hamamatsu Joint Research Center for Child Mental Development, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Suita, Osaka, Japan
- CREST (Core Research for Evolutionary Science and Technology), JST (Japan Science and Technology Agency), Kawaguchi, Saitama, Japan
Masatoshi Takeda
- Department of Psychiatry, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Suita, Osaka, Japan
- The Osaka-Hamamatsu Joint Research Center for Child Mental Development, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Suita, Osaka, Japan

Received 25 March 2009; received in revised form 25 September 2009; accepted 4 October 2009. published online 09 November 2009.

Abstract

While psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia are largely diagnosed on symptomatology, several studies have attempted to determine which biomarkers can discriminate schizophrenia patients from non-patients with schizophrenia. The objective of this study is to assess whether near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) measurement can distinguish schizophrenia patients from healthy subjects. Sixty patients with schizophrenia and sixty age- and gender-matched healthy controls were divided into two sequential groups. The concentration change in oxygenated hemoglobin (Δ[oxy-Hb]) was measured in the bilateral prefrontal areas (Fp1-F7 and Fp2-F8) during the Verbal Fluency Test (VFT) letter version and category version, Tower of Hanoi (TOH), Sternberg's (SBT) and Stroop Tasks.

In the first group, schizophrenia patients showed poorer task performance on all tasks and less prefrontal cortex activation during all but the Stroop Task compared to healthy subjects. In the second group, schizophrenia patients showed poorer task performance and less prefrontal cortex activation during VFTs and TOH tasks than healthy subjects. We then performed discriminant analysis by a stepwise method using Δ[oxy-Hb] and task performance measures as independent variables. The discriminant analysis in the first group included task performance of TOH, VFT letter and VFT category and Δ[oxy-Hb] of VFT letter. As a result, 88.3% of the participants were correctly classified as being schizophrenic or healthy subjects in the first analysis. The discriminant function derived from the first group correctly assigned 75% of the subjects in the second group. Our findings suggest that NIRS measurement could be applied to differentiate patients with schizophrenia from healthy subjects.

Keywords: Schizophrenia, Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), Frontal lobe dysfunction, Biological marker, Discriminant analysis, Prospective validation