Scientists use Alice in Wonderland movie to detect early signs of PSYCHOSIS

It may have been slated by the critics, but Tim Burton's 'Alice in Wonderland' could actually change the lives of people with psychosis.

Scientists have used the reactions of people watching the 2010 film to detect the first signs of the mental illness in seemingly healthy people.

The team from Finland discovered psychotics viewed and processed information from the fantasy film differently and these brain patterns could help doctors identify those at risk.

Psychosis is a mental health problem that causes people to perceive or interpret things differently from those around them, and might involve hallucinations or delusions.

The brain processes of psychotic disorders remains inadequately understood and early diagnosis is difficult as patterns in the brain are not as 'hard wired' as in chronic sufferers.

The scientists say the study may now revolutionise the way people with psychosis are treated.

Eva Rikandi of the Aalto University in Helsinki said: "In this work, we attempted to determine whether a person is a first-episode psychosis patient or a healthy control subject just by looking at their brain activity recorded during movie viewing.

"We found, that by monitoring activity in a region known as the precuneus, we were able to distinguish patients from control subjects especially well."

Using scans, the researchers showed even those who had suffered psychotic episode process information differently from a control group when shown the 2010 Hollywood blockbuster.

They chose to show 46 first-episode psychotic patients and 32 healthy controls the film so each group were receiving the same information-rich stimulus.

It found that significant differences could be seen in the precuneus region of the brain, which is an area associated with memory, spatial and visual awareness, self-awareness, and aspects of consciousness.

Ms Rikandi added: "We were able to achieve almost 80 per cent classification accuracy using these methods. This would mean that the precuneus, a central hub for the integration of self- and episodic-memory-related information, plays an important role in this kind of information processing of psychotic patients.

"This is the first study which directly associates the beginnings of psychosis with the precuneus, so it is now important that much more research is done in this area."

The findings, which were presented at the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology Congress in Amsterdam, will help develop earlier screening and better diagnosis of those at risk.

ECNP President-Elect Professor Celso Arango from Madrid said: "The interesting question here is how patients with psychosis, even in their first episode, process information in a different way.

"Specifically how a movie such as Alice in Wonderland elicits the participation of different brain areas, and how that relate to the history of the person watching.

"What we would like to know is if patients with psychosis might see this as more or less relevant to their own life than would healthy controls.

"This movie is about a fantasy world, would it be different with other types of movie?"

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