Neurofunctional correlates of Working Memory across Psychosis Stages: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Abstract Working memory (WM) impairments have been reported in different stages of psychosis but whether their neural correlates are shared or stage-specific is unknown. This meta-analysis examined WM-related brain activity across psychosis stages: familial and clinical high-risk for psychosis (at-risk stage), first-episode psychosis (early psychosis stage), and chronic schizophrenia (chronic psychosis stage). PubMed, Ovid, and Web of Science were searched up to July 2025 for functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies comparing individuals in each stage and healthy controls during WM. Seed-based d-mapping assessed WM-related fMRI correlates at each stage. Significance was set at family-wise error-corrected p