Baseline serum vascular endothelial growth factor levels predict treatment response to antipsychotic medication in patients with schizophrenia

Xiao, Wenhuan; Zhan, Qiongqiong; Ye, Fei; Tang, Xiaowei; Li, Jin; Dong, Hui; Sha, Wei; Zhang, Xiaobin

doi:10.1016/j.euroneuro.2018.03.007

Cited by 15 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Our most important findings are that VEGF levels are decreased in NRS patients compared to RS and HC. Furthermore, we previously reported a decrease in the VEGF in serum of subjects with schizophrenia that is restored in schizophrenia subjects treated with antipsychotic drugs or ECT [36–38]. These results are consistent with previous studies [39–44], supporting the hypothesis that levels of neurotrophic factor of the patients with schizophrenia was obviously abnormal.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Neurocognition and social cognition in remitted first-episode schizophrenia: correlation with VEGF serum levels

et al. 2019

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BackgroundAccumulating evidence suggests that serum vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in many neurobiological processes potentially contributes to the pathophysiology of psychiatric disorders, particularly cognitive decline. The purpose of this study was to explore the differences in neurocognition, social cognition and VEGF among remitted first-episode schizophrenic patients, non-remitters and normal control subjects. Moreover, we investigated the association between serum VEGF levels and cognitive functions.Method65 remission (RS) and 45 nonremission patients (NRS) after first-episode schizophrenia, as well as 58 healthy controls (HC) were enrolled in this study. Social cognition was assessed using the Chinese Facial Emotion Test (CFET); neurocognition was measured with a test battery consisting of Hopkins Verbal Learning Test-Revised, Verbal Fluency Test, Trail Making Tests, Digit Span Tests (DST) and Stroop Tests. Blood samples were collected for VEGF measurements. Data was analyzed with SPSS 22.0 (Chicago, IL, USA).ResultsOn nearly all neurocognitive tests (except for DST), RS performed significantly worse than HC but better than NRS (P < 0.05). NRS, but not RS, exhibited markedly poorer social cognition than HC (except for Happiness and Surprise subscales of the CFET) (P < 0.05). VEGF levels showed a gradient change among three groups (HC > RS > NRS).ConclusionCompared to HC, RS demonstrated poorer neurocognitive but intact social cognition functioning. These results indicate that VEGF levels decreased gradually with the severity of cognitive impairment in schizophrenia. VEGF may be involved in the pathological mechanism of cognitive performance in RS.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Neurocognition and social cognition in remitted first-episode schizophrenia: correlation with VEGF serum levels

et al. 2019

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“…Clinical studies examining peripheral VEGF levels in SCZ versus CTL have yielded conflicting results. While some studies found elevated serum VEGF concentrations in individuals with SCZ 69,70 , others revealed no significant difference [71][72][73][74] , or lower concentrations 75,76 . The extremely high between-individual variability in VEGFA expression may explain such conflicting findings.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Overdispersed gene expression in schizophrenia

et al. 2020

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Schizophrenia (SCZ) is a severe, highly heterogeneous psychiatric disorder with varied clinical presentations. The polygenic genetic architecture of SCZ makes identification of causal variants a daunting task. Gene expression analyses hold the promise of revealing connections between dysregulated transcription and underlying variants in SCZ. However, the most commonly used differential expression analysis often assumes grouped samples are from homogeneous populations and thus cannot be used to detect expression variance differences between samples. Here, we applied the test for equality of variances to normalized expression data, generated by the CommonMind Consortium (CMC), from brains of 212 SCZ and 214 unaffected control (CTL) samples. We identified 87 genes, including VEGFA (vascular endothelial growth factor) and BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor), that showed a significantly higher expression variance among SCZ samples than CTL samples. In contrast, only one gene showed the opposite pattern. To extend our analysis to gene sets, we proposed a Mahalanobis distance-based test for multivariate homogeneity of group dispersions, with which we identified 110 gene sets with a significantly higher expression variability in SCZ, including sets of genes encoding phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) complex and several others involved in cerebellar cortex morphogenesis, neuromuscular junction development, and cerebellar Purkinje cell layer development. Taken together, our results suggest that SCZ brains are characterized by overdispersed gene expression-overall gene expression variability among SCZ samples is significantly higher than that among CTL samples. Our study showcases the application of variability-centric analyses in SCZ research.

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“…(2014) and Xiao et al. (2018) studies have previously suggested that high baseline serum concentrations of VEGF may predict a better clinical response of schizophrenia patients. However, later Xiao et al.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…In our study, those schizophrenic ECT patients who displayed higher VEGF concentrations at any measurement times were significantly more likely to show better clinical results, most apparent in the negative symptom scale. Minelli et al (2014) and Xiao et al (2018) studies have previously suggested that high baseline serum concentrations of VEGF may predict a better clinical response of schizophrenia patients. However, later Xiao et al (2019) study demonstrated that responders and nonresponders to ECT could not be characterized by initial VEGF levels, as both groups were identical.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Brain stimulation effects on serum BDNF, VEGF, and TNFα in treatment‐resistant psychiatric disorders

Valiulienė

Valiulis

Dapšys

et al. 2021

Eur J of Neuroscience

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Resistance to pharmacological treatment poses a notable challenge for psychiatry. Such cases are usually treated with brain stimulation techniques, including repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Empirical evidence links treatment resistance to insufficient brain plasticity and chronic inflammation. Therefore, this study encompasses analysis of neurotrophic and inflammatory factors in psychiatric patients undergoing rTMS and ECT in order to refine the selection of patients and predict clinical outcomes. This study enrolled 25 drug‐resistant depressive patients undergoing rTMS and 31 drug‐resistant schizophrenia patients undergoing ECT. Clinical efficacy of brain stimulation therapies was gauged using MADRS and HAM‐D scales in the depression group and PANSS scale in the schizophrenia group. Blood‐derived BDNF, VEGF, and TNFα were analysed during the treatment course. For reference, 19 healthy control subjects were also enrolled. After statistical analysis, no significant differences were detected in BDNF, VEGF, and TNFα concentrations among healthy, depressive, and schizophrenic subject groups before the treatment. However, depressive patient treatment with rTMS has increased BDNF concentration, while schizophrenic patient treatment with ECT has lowered the concentration of TNFα. Our findings suggest that a lower initial TNFα concentration could be a marker for treatment success in depressed patients undergoing rTMS, whereas in schizophrenic patient group treated with ECT, a higher concentration of VEGF correlates to milder symptoms post‐treatment, especially in the negative scale.

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Baseline serum vascular endothelial growth factor levels predict treatment response to antipsychotic medication in patients with schizophrenia

Cited by 15 publications

References 39 publications

Neurocognition and social cognition in remitted first-episode schizophrenia: correlation with VEGF serum levels

Neurocognition and social cognition in remitted first-episode schizophrenia: correlation with VEGF serum levels

Overdispersed gene expression in schizophrenia

Brain stimulation effects on serum BDNF, VEGF, and TNFα in treatment‐resistant psychiatric disorders

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