PSYCHIATRIC SYMPTOMS ARE DIFFERENTIALLY ASSOCIATED WITH VERBAL FLUENCY PERFORMANCE IN PATIENTS WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA AND AFFECTIVE DISORDERS 2021 Congress of the Schizophrenia International Society, April 17–21, 2021 INTRODUCTION METHODOLOGY • SUBJECTS: 58 German-speaking patients diagnosed with either schizophrenia (F20.x; N = 36), bipolar disorder (F31.x; N = 10), or major depressive disorder (F32.x and F33.x; N = 12) according to ICD-10 criteria CONCLUSIONS Petar Gabrić1, Arne Nagels2, Tilo Kircher3, Anna Rosenkranz1 1Institute for German Linguistics, Philipps University of Marburg, Germany 2Department of English and Linguistics, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany 3Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Philipps University of Marburg, Germany Age (years) 43.207 ± 14.396 Education (years) 10.310 ± 1.614 Percentage of males (%) 69.0 Symptoms SAPS 23.603 ± 21.738 SAPS positive FTD 10.759 ± 9.046 SANS 30.759 ± 22.491 SANS alogia 4.638 ± 3.856 YMRS 7.259 ± 7.053 HAMD 12.207 ± 7.982 • Research on verbal fuency in psychotic and afective syndromes is typically conducted with a diagnostic approach which is epistemologically problematic because: (1) psychotic and afective symptoms are not pathognomonic, (2) subthreshold-symptomatic people are considered healthy, despite the possible presence of psychopathological phenomena, (3) validity of the current diagnostic criteria remains highly disputed, and (4) misdiagnoses are common in afective syndromes. • Associations between symptoms and verbal fuency performance have mainly been investigated in patients with schizophrenia, with the results alarmingly heterogenous in the signifcance of the p-values, strengths of the correlation coefcients, and associations with di ferent symptoms subscales and symptoms. • Transdiagnostic symptom-based research is lacking, while additional performance measures are critically underinvestigated. VERBAL FLUENCY ASSESSMENT: NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT: • animals (semantic fuency; SF) and <p> (letter fuency; LF) • 60 seconds for each task • Clusters analyzed according to Troyer et al. (1997); clustering variables calculated according to Gabrić & Vandek (2020, in review) • Dependent variables: correct words (raw), words per cluster, switching rate, word frequency, word idiosyncrasy • Trail Making Test parts A and B • Digit span backward (Wechsler Memory Scale) • Multiple-choice Vocabulary Intelligence Test • D2 test of attention STATISTICS • FIRSTLY, associations between symptom severity and verbal fuency performance were explored via Spearman correlation coefcients. • SECONDLY, these associations were further investigated by analyzing the associations from signi fcant correlations with the Kruskal-Wallis test (Dunn-Bonferroni for post hoc comparisons). Quade’s rank analysis of covariance was performed where confounding factors needed to be controlled. • NOTE that this poster contains only a selection of the more interesting results. RESULTS Results indicate impaired access to semantic memory in mild alogia. Patients with minimal and mild alogia were less likely to build a cluster afer producing a switch on SF compared to patients with no alogia. Patients with minimal mania (YMRS: 13–19) were more likely to build clusters of three or more words on SF compared to patients with no mania. Tis efect was not observed for the few patients with mild and moderate mania. Patients with mania produced idiosyncratic words (word uttered by only one patient) at signifcantly higher rates compared to patients with no mania on SF. Descriptive data suggest that patients with moderate and severe depression produced words of higher frequencies compared to patients with no or mild depression. Patients with depression were less likely to build a cluster afer producing a switch on SF compared to patients with no depression. • We report a number of previously uninvestigated associations between psychiatric symptoms and verbal fuency performance. • Mild alogia appears to be associated with impaired access to semantic memory and less efcient functional connectivity between subcategorical co-hyponyms. • Depression may also be associated with less efcient functional connectivity between subcategorical co-hyponyms. Further, moderate and severe depression may be associated with higher word frequencies, underscoring the potential of verbal fuency tasks in use as predictive and diagnostic tools in psychiatry. • Minimal but not mild and moderate mania was associated with normal or supranormal cluster size, while mania in general was further associated with higher production of idiosyncratic words. Tus, (hypo)mania may be associated with normal or exaggerated functional connectivity between subcategorical co-hyponyms.