Welcome to the 21st WCP Virtual Congress Program Scheduling

One of the research directions in current psychiatry is to identify electrophysiological measures, such as key components of electroencephalography (EEG) and event-related potentials (ERPs), in evaluating cognition and higher-level functionality in schizophrenia. Specifically, these methods provide feasible markers and therapeutics guides to improve long-term outcomes. For this purpose, components of ERPs, such as mismatch negativity (MMN) and P300 (P3a, P3b), have been a target of extensive research. This symposium will provide a cutting-edge information on the role for these electrophysiological measures in the evaluation and prediction of outcomes in subjects with schizophrenia or clinical high-risk (CHR). Dr. Giordano will explain recent findings of a machine learning study, which used a combination of four different types of EEG data (frequency bands, microstates, MMN-P3a, N100-P3b) in order to create a classifier to discriminate subjects with schizophrenia from healthy controls. Dr. Yuko Higuchi/Prof. Sumiyoshi will provide recent data on MMN, P300, olfactory functions, and sleep parameters in patients with schizophrenia or CHR. Specifically, the ability of latencies of ERPs, in addition to their amplitudes, to predict outcomes in these subjects will be discussed. Prof. Yingying Tang will share some preliminary results on phase-amplitude coupling features in early psychosis. Discussions on this topic in relation to neuromodulation will also be provided. Overall, the latest evidence presented from these talks will provide up-to-date views on the contribution of neurophysiological paradigms to predicting functionality and disease progression in individuals with psychiatric conditions.