• Din Duraković, Ante Silić, Vjekoslav Peitl, Rašeljka Tadić, Kristina Lončarić, Trpimir Glavina, Daniela Šago, Ljiljana Pačić Turk, and Dalibor Karlović.
• 1Sestre milosrdnice University Hospital Centre, Department of Psychiatry, Zagreb, Croatia; 2Sestre milosrdnice University Hospital Centre, Department of Ophthalmology, Zagreb, Croatia; 3Catholic University of Croatia, Zagreb, Croatia.
• Acta Clin Croat. 2020 Dec 1; 59 (4): 729-739.

AbstractThe use of electroretinography (ERG) and optical coherence tomography (OCT) has currently expanded beyond ophthalmology alone. The aim of this review is to present the results and knowledge acquired by these two methods in patients suffering from schizophrenia. Reviewing the studies applying ERG and OCT methods in the field of psychiatry, one can conclude that results of the research imply morphological and functional changes of retina in patients with schizophrenia that are not consistent. However, in most studies there was reduction of the amplitude and changes in the implicit time related parameters on ERG and thinning of the retinal nerve fiber layer on OCT. Neurons in the eye use the same neurotransmitters as neurons in the basal brain structures that are most affected in schizophrenia, according to the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia. Unlike neurons in the basal brain structures, the neurons in the eye are in vivo available to ERG. Using the aforementioned tests together with clinical diagnostic criteria of schizophrenia, the subgroups with different prognostic and therapeutic specificities within schizophrenia as a group of diseases might be identified more precisely.

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