The current project is a student project that is linked to the already approved project: B3840 Developmental pathways to mental health problems. All needed data are available through B3840.

Psychotic disorders are often severe and have high heritability. Despite a small proportion of the population being affected by psychotic disorders, they have the highest disability weight. Beside impairing health in their own, these disorders further increase risks for other health outcomes such as suicide. To understand the mechanistic pathways leading to development of psychotic disorders, it is important to study individuals with at risk, either individuals at clinical risk or individuals with genetic risk. Clinical risk refers to the presence of symptoms, but that the full diagnostic criteria are not met. Genetic risk is in an ALSPAC MRI substudy operazationalied as high polygenic risk for schizophrenia. Further, studying individuals at risk reduces confounding for medication or chronic illness to some extent.

Substantial efforts have been dedicated to identify neural factors associated with risk for psychotic disorders. Despite these efforts, the picture of how psychotic disorders develop is not clear and our knowledge about which factors contribute to this development is limited. There is thus a demand for further research to identify the brain structural and microstructural correlates associated with psychosis risk. Moreover, directly comparing individuals with clinical (symptom-based) risk for psychosis and individuals with genetic risk for psychosis can possibly reveal both shared and distinct neural mechanisms.