Exploring Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor and Other Blood-Brain Barrier Biomarkers in Cognition of First-Episode Psychosis

Conclusions: Our preliminary results suggest that an increase in VEGF might help preserve social cognition after first- episode psychosis. These findings might suggest that a compensatory mechanism could outweigh other VEGF- related hypotheses, such as blood-brain barrier opening and chronic neuroinflammation. However, this hypothesis requires further investigation to address the methodological challenges of determining chemokine levels and controlling for confounding variables.