Bridging the gap: aberrant salience, depressive symptoms and their role in psychosis prodrome

Objective Aberrant salience (AS) is the unusual or incorrect assignment of salience, significance, or importance to otherwise innocuous stimuli and it is considered a key psychopathological feature of schizophrenia. Recent studies suggest AS can help identify individuals who are at risk of developing psychosis. Depressive symptoms (DS) are one of the major causes for help-seeking behaviors and might even predate the emergence of attenuated psychotic symptoms. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between AS and DS among young help-seekers. Methods A cross-sectional analytical study was conducted. 261 students (69% female, median age 23 years) accessing our counseling service were administered the Aberrant Salience Inventory (ASI), the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) and the 16-item version of the Prodromal Questionnaire (PQ-16). Associations of age, sex, AS, DS, and psychotic-like experiences (PLE) were assessed using linear regression models. Results The median self-report scores were respectively BDI-II = 16 (IQR = 14), ASI = 13 (IQR = 9), and PQ-16 = 4 (IQR = 5). 90 students (37.2%) obtained a PQ-16 score = 6, which is suggestive of a prodromal condition. Linear regression analysis showed that higher BDI and ASI scores predict higher PQ-16 scores and, thus, a higher PLE. Moreover, a second linear regression showed that three ASI subscales were significant predictors. Conclusions Since people with a high risk for the development of psychosis have much higher ASI scores than people without risk, our preliminary results suggest that the relationship between salience alterations and depressive symptomatology might provide helpful tools for identifying prodromal conditions.