Neuropsychological and Clinical Correlations of Optical Coherence Tomography Findings in Patients with Schizophrenia

Abstract

Objective: There are increasing studies examining retinal fiber layer (RNFL) and ganglion cell layer (GCL) thinning in patients with schizophrenia. However, the results are controversial, and clinical and cognitive reflections of these findings remain unclear. With this study, we aim to examine retinal abnormalities and establish correlations with cognitive and clinical parameters.
 Methods: In this cross-sectional study, we examined 29 patients with schizophrenia and 13 age and gender-matched healthy controls. All participants underwent psychometric assessment, neuropsychological tests, and optical coherence tomography (OCT) measurements. The retinal fiber layer and ganglion cell layer thickness were used as retinal parameters.
 Results: Five patients dropped out during the OCT measurement process, 24 patients with schizophrenia and nine healthy controls were included in the analysis. There was no statistically significant difference between groups in measuring retinal nerve fiber layer or ganglion cell layer thicknesses. The verbal fluency test score negatively correlated with left RNFL superior ( ρ – .422, p