Impairment of perceptual metacognitive accuracy and reduced prefrontal grey matter volume in first-episode psychosis
Cognitive Neuropsychiatry February 27, 2018 Geoff Davies, Charlotte L. Rae, Sarah N. Garfinkel et al. 23 citations
People in the early stages of psychosis show a reduced ability to accurately evaluate their own perceptions, a metacognitive deficit. In a perceptual decision-making task, individuals with first-episode psychosis performed worse on metacognitive accuracy than healthy controls, even when their basic perceptual performance was accounted for. Grey matter volume was also reduced in the superior frontal gyrus, a brain region linked to metacognition. However, no direct relationship was found between grey matter volume and metacognitive accuracy, leaving the neural basis of this deficit unclear. These findings suggest that a specific problem in scrutinizing one's own perceptions may underlie later functional difficulties in schizophrenia.