Shalaila S. Haas

selected publications

1. 

   Accelerated Global and Local Brain Aging Differentiate Cognitively Impaired From Cognitively Spared Patients With Schizophrenia

   Haas, Shalaila S, Ge, Ruiyang, Sanford, Nicole, Modabbernia, Amirhossein, Reichenberg, Abraham, Whalley, Heather C,  Kahn, René S and 1 more author

   Frontiers in Psychiatry Jun 2022

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   Background: Accelerated aging has been proposed as a mechanism underlying the clinical and cognitive presentation of schizophrenia. The current study extends the field by examining both global and regional patterns of brain aging in schizophrenia, as inferred from brain structural data, and their association with cognitive and psychotic symptoms. Methods: Global and local brain-age-gap-estimates (G-brainAGE and L-brainAGE) were computed using a U-Net Model from T1-weighted structural neuroimaging data from 84 patients (aged 16–35 years) with early-stage schizophrenia (illness duration <5 years) and 1,169 healthy individuals (aged 16–37 years). Multidomain cognitive data from the patient sample were submitted to Heterogeneity through Discriminative Analysis (HYDRA) to identify cognitive clusters. Results: HYDRA classified patients into a cognitively impaired cluster (n = 69) and a cognitively spared cluster (n = 15). Compared to healthy individuals, G-brainAGE was significantly higher in the cognitively impaired cluster (+11.08 years) who also showed widespread elevation in L-brainAGE, with the highest deviance observed in frontal and temporal regions. The cognitively spared cluster showed a moderate increase in G-brainAGE (+8.94 years), and higher L-brainAGE localized in the anterior cingulate cortex. Psychotic symptom severity in both clusters showed a positive but non-significant association with G-brainAGE. Discussion: Accelerated aging in schizophrenia can be detected at the early disease stages and appears more closely associated with cognitive dysfunction rather than clinical symptoms. Future studies replicating our findings in multi-site cohorts with larger numbers of participants are warranted.

   @article{haas2022accelerated,
     title = {Accelerated Global and Local Brain Aging Differentiate Cognitively Impaired From Cognitively Spared Patients With Schizophrenia},
     author = {Haas, Shalaila S and Ge, Ruiyang and Sanford, Nicole and Modabbernia, Amirhossein and Reichenberg, Abraham and Whalley, Heather C and Kahn, Ren{\'e} S and Frangou, Sophia},
     journal = {Frontiers in Psychiatry},
     pages = {1294},
     year = {2022},
     month = jun,
     publisher = {Frontiers},
   }

2. 

   Evidence of discontinuity between psychosis-risk and non-clinical samples in the neuroanatomical correlates of social function

   Haas, Shalaila S, Doucet, Gaelle E, Antoniades, Mathilde, Modabbernia, Amirhossein, Corcoran, Cheryl M, Kahn, René S,  Kambeitz, Joseph and 4 more authors

   Schizophrenia Research: Cognition Apr 2022

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   Objective: Social dysfunction is a major feature of clinical-high-risk states for psychosis (CHR-P). Prior research has identified a neuroanatomical pattern associated with impaired social function outcome in CHR-P. The aim of the current study was to test whether social dysfunction in CHR-P is neurobiologically distinct or in a continuum with the lower end of the normal distribution of individual differences in social functioning. Methods: We used a machine learning classifier to test for the presence of a previously validated brain structural pattern associated with impaired social outcome in CHR-P (CHR-outcome-neurosignature) in the neuroimaging profiles of individuals from two non-clinical samples (total n = 1763) and examined its association with social function, psychopathology and cognition. Results: Although the CHR-outcome-neurosignature could be detected in a subset of the non-clinical samples, it was not associated was adverse social outcomes or higher psychopathology levels. However, participants whose neuroanatomical profiles were highly aligned with the CHR-outcome-neurosignature manifested subtle disadvantage in fluid (PFDR = 0.004) and crystallized intelligence (PFDR = 0.01), cognitive flexibility (PFDR = 0.02), inhibitory control (PFDR = 0.01), working memory (PFDR = 0.0005), and processing speed (PFDR = 0.04). Conclusions: We provide evidence of divergence in brain structural underpinnings of social dysfunction derived from a psychosis-risk enriched population when applied to non-clinical samples. This approach appears promising in identifying brain mechanisms bound to psychosis through comparisons of patient populations to non-clinical samples with the same neuroanatomical profiles.

   @article{haas2022evidence,
     title = {Evidence of discontinuity between psychosis-risk and non-clinical samples in the neuroanatomical correlates of social function},
     author = {Haas, Shalaila S and Doucet, Gaelle E and Antoniades, Mathilde and Modabbernia, Amirhossein and Corcoran, Cheryl M and Kahn, Ren{\'e} S and Kambeitz, Joseph and Kambeitz-Ilankovic, Lana and Borgwardt, Stefan and Brambilla, Paolo and others},
     journal = {Schizophrenia Research: Cognition},
     volume = {29},
     pages = {100252},
     year = {2022},
     month = apr,
     publisher = {Elsevier},
   }

3. 

   A multivariate neuromonitoring approach to neuroplasticity-based computerized cognitive training in recent onset psychosis

   Haas, Shalaila S, Antonucci, Linda A, Wenzel, Julian, Ruef, Anne, Biagianti, Bruno, Paolini, Marco,  Rauchmann, Boris-Stephan and 4 more authors

   Neuropsychopharmacology Mar 2021

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   Two decades of studies suggest that computerized cognitive training (CCT) has an effect on cognitive improvement and the restoration of brain activity. Nevertheless, individual response to CCT remains heterogenous, and the predictive potential of neuroimaging in gauging response to CCT remains unknown. We employed multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) on whole-brain resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) to (neuro)monitor clinical outcome defined as psychosis-likeness change after 10-hours of CCT in recent onset psychosis (ROP) patients. Additionally, we investigated if sensory processing (SP) change during CCT is associated with individual psychosis-likeness change and cognitive gains after CCT. 26 ROP patients were divided into maintainers and improvers based on their SP change during CCT. A support vector machine (SVM) classifier separating 56 healthy controls (HC) from 35 ROP patients using rsFC (balanced accuracy of 65.5%, P < 0.01) was built in an independent sample to create a naturalistic model representing the HC-ROP hyperplane. This model was out-of-sample cross-validated in the ROP patients from the CCT trial to assess associations between rsFC pattern change, cognitive gains and SP during CCT. Patients with intact SP threshold at baseline showed improved attention despite psychosis status on the SVM hyperplane at follow-up (p < 0.05). Contrarily, the attentional gains occurred in the ROP patients who showed impaired SP at baseline only if rsfMRI diagnosis status shifted to the healthy-like side of the SVM continuum. Our results reveal the utility of MVPA for elucidating treatment response neuromarkers based on rsFC-SP change and pave the road to more personalized interventions.

   @article{haas2021multivariate,
     title = {A multivariate neuromonitoring approach to neuroplasticity-based computerized cognitive training in recent onset psychosis},
     author = {Haas, Shalaila S and Antonucci, Linda A and Wenzel, Julian and Ruef, Anne and Biagianti, Bruno and Paolini, Marco and Rauchmann, Boris-Stephan and Weiske, Johanna and Kambeitz, Joseph and Borgwardt, Stefan and others},
     journal = {Neuropsychopharmacology},
     volume = {46},
     number = {4},
     pages = {828--835},
     year = {2021},
     month = mar,
     publisher = {Nature Publishing Group},
   }