Fig. 2: Differences in brain metabolites in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) among the three groups of participants.

The patients with persistent auditory verbal hallucinations (pAVH) displayed significant reductions in levels of Glx and tNAA, compared to patients without AVH (non-AVH) (tNAA: p = 0.022, Glx: p = 0.012) and healthy controls (HC) (tNAA: p = 0.001, Glx: p = 0.001). No significant inter-group differences were found between non-AVH and HC. Error bars represent standard deviations. IU institutional units. ns not significant. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01.