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This page is an AI-assisted Turkish summary of the study presented at the 26th World Congress of Psychiatry. The study belongs to the presenting authors; please refer to the original source when citing it.

Neurodevelopmental influences on cortical folding in psychotic disorders

Neurodevelopmental influences on cortical folding in psychotic disorders

Changes in cortical folding may be interpreted as a biologically grounded imaging marker of early neurodevelopmental vulnerability rather than a consequence of chronic illness.

The talk takes as its starting point the limited availability of robust in vivo markers of early neurodevelopmental disruption, despite psychotic disorders being considered within a developmental framework through approaches such as the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD). Because cortical folding (gyrification) develops largely during the fetal and early postnatal periods under the joint influence of genetic and environmental factors, it offers a window into otherwise inaccessible developmental processes in humans, and converging imaging evidence points to altered cortical folding across the psychosis spectrum. A recent large-scale study presented by the speaker demonstrated widespread reductions in local gyrification in adolescents with early-onset psychosis, particularly early-onset schizophrenia; longitudinal analyses in adults with schizophrenia spectrum disorders, meanwhile, indicated stable hypogyria rather than a progressive decline. These findings support the interpretation that alterations in folding are markers of early developmental vulnerability rather than later consequences of chronic illness. Bringing together evidence from early-onset, first-episode, and chronic stages of illness, the presentation discusses how these changes relate to prenatal and perinatal influences, genetic vulnerability, and atypical cortical maturation. It also presents emerging evidence on the prognostic value of cortical folding and its associations with antipsychotic response and clinical course, positioning this measure as a biologically grounded imaging marker for investigating developmental risk and disentangling illness heterogeneity.

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