Visual evoked potentials to the cue to perform a saccade and resting-state functional connectivity of brain networks in subjects at clinical high risk for psychosis

Objectives. This study aimed to analyze the neural mechanisms of visual attention and voluntary eye movements in subjects at clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR). Materials and methods. We applied a «memory-guided saccades/antisaccades» task with electroencephalogram and electrooculogram recording in CHR (n = 16) and mentally healthy participants (n = 20). Behavioral parameters (latency of saccades and antisaccades and number of errors), as well as peak amplitude and latency of visual evoked potentials (EP) to the cue to perform a saccade were assessed. A part of patients (n = 12) and another control group (n = 17) underwent resting-state fMRI; functional connectivity (FC) was analyzed within and between three networks, namely the dorsal attention, salience, and visual networks. Results. CHR participants performed antisaccades with longer latency but no between-group differences were found in EP parameters. CHR group showed an increased FC of the salience network with visual and dorsal attention networks. Shorter antisaccade latency was associated with higher FC between the anterior cingulate cortex and medial occipital cortex. However, this result did not survive the correction for multiple comparisons. Conclusion. EEG analysis revealed no evidence of deficits in neurophysiological processes associated with early and intermediate visual EP components in the CHR group. The observed FC features in CHR might reflect compensatory processes, although the results of correlation analysis did not allow us to confirm associations between the FC and performance on a «memory-guided saccades/antisaccades» task at this stage.

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