Análisis de alteraciones del discurso en estados mentales de alto riesgo de psicosis (EMAR): una revisión sistemática.

Introduction: The need for early intervention in psychosis has led to the search for useful biomarkers in its prediction, where the analysis of spoken language stands out for its easy obtaining and low economic cost. In this systematic review, we analyze the main speech disturbances in patients at ultra-high risk for psychosis (UHR), evaluating their prevalence and their relationship with transition to psychosis. Methods: A search was carried out in PubMed and Embase databases for studies in English or Spanish, as well as the reference lists of the articles found. Results: Of 140 articles identified, 15 were included. The variables of the language analyzed were Linguistic Cohesion, Semantic Coherence, Syntactic Complexity, Metaphorical Production, Emotional Prosody and Formal Thought Disorder (TFP). The prevalence found ranged between 21% and 85% for disturbances included within the TFP, with no prevalence measures for the rest of the variables. The global accuracy for UHR transition to psychosis ranged from 70% to 100% across studies. Conclusion: There is a wide range of speech disorders in UHR patients, where the TFP is the most studied one. The prevalence of these alterations seems to be high, especially with regard to TFP. The analysis of those speech alterations in UHR patients appears as an excellent tool to predict transition to psychosis, particularly through interview transcription and the use of Artificial Intelligence.