Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Impaired illness awareness (IIA) is a common feature of schizophrenia that can lead to medication non-adherence and poor treatment outcomes. As there are no known interventions to improve impaired illness awareness, novel therapeutic approaches are needed. Caloric Vestibular Stimulation (CVS) is a commonly used clinical procedure to test the vestibular system. Traditional CVS stimulates the vestibular nuclei by injecting warm or cold water into the external ear canal. Prior research by our group had shown that a single session of left-ear cold CVS transiently improved IIA in schizophrenia. However, conventional CVS is not feasible clinically, may lead to habituation and cannot be done at home. As an alternative, a novel, safe CVS device was developed that can deliver controlled temperatures to the external ear canal via headset. It can deliver stimuli to both ears simultaneously to maximize the effects, which cannot be achieved with the conventional CVS. This study aims to investigate the clinical and functional imaging effects of this new CVS treatment on illness awareness in schizophrenia. The primary aim of the study is to determine if CVS will improve illness awareness compared to sham stimulation in participants with schizophrenia. The secondary aim of the study is to examine changes in brain network activity related to impaired illness awareness. Participants will receive CVS treatments twice daily for 4 weeks and will complete a brain scan before and after treatments. If CVS treatments are effective, patients can use this device at home as an adjunctive treatment to facilitate antipsychotic medication adherence.