Magnetic resonance spectroscopy studies in subjects with high risk for psychosis: A meta-analysis and review

Abstract Introduction Even though anomalies on brain metabolites have been found in schizophrenia, researches about subjects with high risk (HR) show heterogeneous results. Thus, this meta-analysis aims to characterize the metabolic profile of HR subjects, first, compared to controls (HC) and then compared to people with schizophrenia. Methods After a systematic database search, means and standard deviations were extracted to calculate standardized mean differences (SMD). Cerebral metabolites levels were compared between HR subjects and HC or patients with schizophrenia in all regions of interest investigated in included studies. Meta-regressions were performed to explore the influence of demographic and clinical variables on metabolites level's SMDs. Results Thirty-nine studies were included in this meta-analysis. A higher level of glutamine + glutamate (Glx) was found in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) (p  Conclusions The present meta-analysis provides evidence that some brain metabolites concentrations are disrupted before the transition to psychosis and could be considered like a vulnerability.