June Newsletter | 2025 Issue #2

Shared on behalf of Dr. Lena Palaniyappan & the Discourse Executive Committee.

By Paulina Dzialoszynski

Hello!

Please see below the exciting news coming from Discourse in Psychosis collaborators across the globe.

A note from Montreal:

Hello everyone,

Don’t they say a picture is worth a thousand words?

Scroll down and enjoy memories from Chicago!

Don’t miss our chronicle highlighting a lived experience view of communication impairments, written by Chantal Murthy.

Looking forward to connecting again soon.

Warmly,

Lena

Discourse 2025 Satellite Meeting

Thursday, April 3, 2025

Northwestern University

Lurie Medical Research Center

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Discourse Early Career Awardees

Please find all the materials (slides, and posters) from the meeting in Chicago here.

Discourse Chronicle

Please see the attached PDF of Chantal Murthy’s Blog post.

We are looking for volunteers to submit blogs for upcoming Discourse Newsletters. If you’re interested in contributing please contact Betsy Schaefer.

Discourse Impact Statement

We continually track total grant amounts that is generated through the existence of the Discourse consortium – this is important in order to prepare impact statements and obtain further resources for the network. So, please reach out to Betsy.Schaefer@lhsc.on.ca with any new grant funds you have received since March 2024-2025, that reference our network, working groups and/or protocol in funding applications.

Discourse Metadatabase

Please see the attached file and add/update to our growing Discourse Metadatabase! Please contact Sunny Tang (stang3@northwell.edu) with any questions.

Discourse Committees and Work Groups

Please see the attached document for the Discourse Committees and Work Groups list of members. Ranjini Garani from McGill University will be contacting the various leads periodically to facilitate exchange of information across the channels.

Work Group Updates

Please see the attached slides for each working groups updates.

Clinical Harmonization Working Group Request

The Clinical Harmonization Working Group is requesting hoping researchers that would be willing to share deidentified clinical rating and demographic data for any appropriate datasets that you may have. The study should include clinical ratings on one or more of the following scales: PANSS, BPRS, SANS, SAPS, TLC, TLI, TALD, CDI.

All contributors will be included as a named coauthor of the resulting publication.

Additional information and resources can be found in our shared google drive folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/18Fp8MgrKlOr0FqiPmxJ_xQ__7X9RuGJ1?usp=sharing

Seminar Series 2025

Please stay tuned for the next 2025 Discourse Seminar dates this Fall.

For your convenience, we will keep seminar details up to date on this public google calendar, which you can subscribe to: https://tinyurl.com/3b568arx

Special Issue

We are pleased to announce the Upcoming Special Issue “Language in psychosis: a multidisciplinary approach” in Neuropsychologia.

The Special Issue, guest edited by Marta Bosia, Lena Palaniyappan, Benjamin Straube and Lin Wang will be published by Neuropsychologia (https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/neuropsychologia) in the Language section edited by Valentina Bambini. The focus is on neural underpinnings of language in psychosis. Studies exploring connections between language and brain function, with theoretical and clinical implications, are highly encouraged.

Submission Open Date: 01/09/2024

Final Manuscript Submission Deadline: 30/09/2025

Publications

Bischetti L, et al. Development and Validation of a Rapid Tool to Measure Pragmatic Abilities: The Brief Assessment of Pragmatic Abilities and Cognitive Substrates (APACS Brief). Behav Sci (Basel). 2025 Jan 21;15(2):107. doi: 10.3390/bs15020107. PMID: 40001737; PMCID: PMC11851650.

Elleuch D, Chen Y, Luo Q, Palaniyappan L. Speaking of yourself: A meta-analysis of 80 years of research on pronoun use in schizophrenia. Schizophr Res. 2025 May;279:22-30. doi: 10.1016/j.schres.2025.03.025. Epub 2025 Mar 28. PMID: 40157253.

Elleuch, D., Chen, Y., Luo, Q. et al. Relationship between grammar and schizophrenia: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Commun Med 5, 235 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43856-025-00944-1

Nikzad AH, et al. Evolution of Linguistic Markers of Agency, Centrality and Content During Metacognitive Therapy for Psychosis: A Pilot Exploratory Study. Early Interv Psychiatry. 2025 Jan;19(1):e13628. doi: 10.1111/eip.13628. Epub 2024 Nov 21. PMID: 39572854; PMCID: PMC11930121.

Palaniyappan L, Wang YL, Meister F. Disorganisation and depression: a re-examination of how we think and speak when depressed. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2025 Apr 2. doi: 10.1007/s00406-025-01994-1. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 40172688.

Palominos C, et al. A single composite index of semantic behavior tracks symptoms of psychosis over time. Schizophr Res. 2025 May;279:116-127. doi: 10.1016/j.schres.2025.03.038. PMID: 40093255; PMCID: PMC11908331.

Sharpe V, et al. Selective insensitivity to global vs. local linguistic context in speech produced by patients with untreated psychosis and positive thought disorder. Biol Psychiatry. 2025 Jun 10:S0006-3223(25)01243-0. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2025.06.001. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 40506005.

Tang, S.X., Spilka, M.J., John, M. et al. Automated speech and language markers of longitudinal changes in psychosis symptoms. NPP—Digit Psychiatry Neurosci 3, 13 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44277-025-00034-z

van Opstal DPJ, et al. Psychosis Prognosis Predictor: A continuous and uncertainty-aware prediction of treatment outcome in first-episode psychosis. Acta Psychiatr Scand. 2025 Mar;151(3):280-292. doi: 10.1111/acps.13754. Epub 2024 Sep 18. PMID: 39293941; PMCID: PMC11787921.

Zhang H, et al. The structure of meaning in schizophrenia: A study of spontaneous speech in Chinese. Psychiatry Res. 2025 Feb;344:116347. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2024.116347. Epub 2024 Dec 28. PMID: 39756103.

Accomplishments & Awards

Matthew Nour, along with colleagues Rick Adams, Mohammady El-Gaby and Maria Eckstein, was awarded a Wellcome Trust grant – “Goal-planning in Psychosis: a study across humans, mice and neural networks” Several global collaborators from the DISCOURSE consortium are part of this exciting study that is being coordinated from Oxford and UCL. Congratulations Matt!

Below, find a picture of the DIALOG group who was also successful in the same Wellcome call.

Discourse Protocol

The Discourse Protocol is now being used around the world for harmonized data collection. Most recently, Danish version has been completed and is being put to use in a new longitudinal study (thanks to Nikolai Albert fromOPUS PCK- Team).

Please take a look at our Discourse in Psychosis website, which now has within the Membership Directory Files a folder containing translations of the Discourse Protocol, which can be found here. https://discourseinpsychosis.org/resources/

Please email pdzialos@uwo.ca for any updates on grants, publications and events you want to share with the Discourse in Psychosis community.

Connect with DISCOURSE Colleagues! Join our Slack workspace with this link:

https://join.slack.com/t/discourseinpsychosis/shared_invite/zt-2hztam1m9-vVtV55v6zW0GS7A9MY7QyQ and stay in touch via X (@discourseinpsy)