Artificial intelligence and psychiatry research and practice

In a pilot study on 15 untreated first-episode schizophrenia participants, we examined how pre-treatment motor cortical plasticity – the brain’s ability to change in response to an external perturbation – induced with intermittent theta burst stimulation, predicted prospectively ascertained (in 4-to-6 weeks) response to antipsychotic medications. We observed that participants with cortical plasticity in the opposite direction (possibly compensatory) had significantly greater improvements in their positive symptoms. This association persisted after correcting for multiple comparisons and controlling for potential confounders via linear regression. Inter-individual variability in cortical plasticity is a potential predictive biomarker in schizophrenia requiring further investigation and replication.