Professor Robert Chen
Editor-in-Chief, Clinical Neurophysiology
Guanfu Wu, Tianyuan Zhu, Chunyan Ma, Lihua Xu, Zhenying Qian, Gai Kong, Huiru Cui, Tianhong Zhang, Jijun Wang, Yingying Tang
Cortical inhibition can be assessed non-invasively using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) with short-interval intracortical inhibition (SICI), related to GABAA receptor mediated inhibition) and cortical silent period (CSP), related to GABAB receptor mediated inhibition). Previous studies showed abnormal cortical inhibition in schizophrenia. Subjects with attenuated psychotic symptoms and cognitive impairment are considered clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR). In this volume of Clinical Neurophysiology, Wu et al. examined cortical inhibition and facilitation in CHR, first episode psychosis and healthy control subjects. The results showed that CSP was prolonged in CHR subjects who subsequently converted to psychosis and in first episode psychosis subjects, whereas CSP durations CHR subjects who did not progress to psychosis and control subjects were comparable. The findings suggest the CSP duration could potentially be a biomarker for predicting conversion to schizophrenia.