S76. ABERRANT SELF-REFERENTIAL PROCESSING IN INDIVIDUALS AT ULTRA-HIGH RISK FOR PSYCHOSIS: AN FMRI STUDY

Abstract Background Self-referential processing and perspective taking are core defected facets of self which may be underlying the psychotic symptoms and impaired social cognition in schizophrenia. To investigate this issue, we explored the neural correlates of self-referential processing regardless of the perspective taken, and the other’s perspective taking in any reference target. Methods Twenty-two ultra-high risk (UHR) for psychosis individuals and 28 healthy controls were asked to judge the extent of the relevance of personality trait adjectives for themselves or close relatives and were also requested to put themselves in close other’s position and approximate this person’s judgements on the relevance of trait adjectives for self or other during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Results In the self-referential processing (self-as-target versus other-as-target), UHR individuals showed significantly reduced neural activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) with medial orbitofrontal cortex. In the taking of the third-person perspective (other’s perspective versus one’s own perspective), UHR individuals showed increased activity in the visual association areas of middle occipital gyrus. Discussion These findings suggest that putative ‘prodromal’, UHR individuals already show the self-referential impairment for endorsing self-relevance to surrounding social information, which may be underpinned by reduced VMPFC activity while UHR individuals still can be capable of recruiting additional visual associative cortex for taking the close other’s position.