Brain size and brain/intracranial volume ratio in major mental illness

Abstract

BackgroundThis paper summarizes the findings of a long term study addressing the question of how several brain volume measure are related to three major mental illnesses in a Colorado subject group. It reports results obtained from a large N, collected and analyzed by the same laboratory over a multiyear period, with visually guided MRI segmentation being the primary initial analytic tool.MethodsIntracerebral volume (ICV), total brain volume (TBV), ventricular volume (VV), ventricular/brain ratio (VBR), and TBV/ICV ratios were calculated from a total of 224 subject MRIs collected over a period of 13 years. Subject groups included controls (C, N = 89), and patients with schizophrenia (SZ, N = 58), bipolar disorder (BD, N = 51), and schizoaffective disorder (SAD, N = 26).ResultsICV, TBV, and VV measures compared favorably with values obtained by other research groups, but in this study did not differ significantly between groups. TBV/ICV ratios were significantly decreased, and VBR increased, in the SZ and BD groups compared to the C group. The SAD group did not differ from C on any measure.ConclusionsIn this study TBV/ICV and VBR ratios separated SZ and BD patients from controls. Of interest however, SAD patients did not differ from controls on these measures. The findings suggest that the gross measure of TBV may not reliably differ in the major mental illnesses to a degree useful in diagnosis, likely due to the intrinsic variability of the measures in question; the differences in VBR appear more robust across studies. Differences in some of these findings compared to earlier reports from several laboratories finding significant differences between groups in VV and TBV may relate to phenomenological drift, differences in analytic techniques, and possibly the "file drawer problem".

Brain structure, function, and neurochemistry in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder—a systematic review of the magnetic resonance neuroimaging literature

“…HC = BD > SZ in hippocampusSalisbury et al 116 200732/20/0/21PFEMedicatedHeschl gyriROI (manual tracing)1.5SZ < HC = BD in left heschl gyrus gray matter volumesNakamura et al 117 200736/29/0/34PFEMedicatedNeocortexROI (manual tracing)1.5HC > SZ = BD neocortical gray matter volumesMorgan et al 118 200758/44/0/29PFEMedicatedWhole brainVBM1.5No group differencesFrazier et al 42 200829/20/0/54P/NPChronicMedicatedSubcortical volumesROI (manual tracing)1.5No group differences in hippocampus and amygdala volumesKoo et al 52 200840/39/0/41PFEMedicatedCingulate gyrusROI (manual tracing)1.5HC > SZ in subgenual, anterostratal, anterodorsal, and posterior subregions. HC > BD in the subgenual subregionKillgore et al 43 200920/19/0/11Acute psychosisMedicatedCerebrum, amygdala, hippocampusROI (manual tracing)1.5SZ < BD = HC total brain volume, SCZ = HC = BD in amygdala and hippocampus volumeReite et al 119 201089/58/26/51ChronicMedicatedWhole brainmanual tracing and semiautomated1.5/3No group differencesMolina et al 48 201124/38/0/19P/NPChronicMedicatedWhole brainVBM1.5No differences in SZ vs BD. SZ < HC in medial frontal lobe and basal ganglia.…”

Study factors influencing ventricular enlargement in schizophrenia: A 20year follow-up meta-analysis

“…Studies also had to have specifically utilized the VBR as their measure of ventricular size and reported mean and standard deviations for mean VBR in both samples – as was done similarly in Van Horn and McManus. The earliest journal article considered in this updated collection of studies was that of Shiraishi et al (1990) while the latest journal article examined was that of Reite et al (2010). Journal impact factor was not used as a basis for article inclusion/exclusion from our study but was used as a potential moderator variable (see below).…”

A new method of estimating brain mass through cranial capacity in extinct proboscideans to account for the non-neural tissues surrounding their brain

“…Consequently, only data on comparison between BM (or volume converted into mass; see Table 1) and CC were used. Those data are from K€ oppel (1897), Mobilio (1915), R€ ohrs and Ebinger (2001), Knudsen et al (2002), Shoshani et al (2006), and Reite et al (2010) (Table 1). As far as it was made explicit in this literature, only adult, healthy, and non-pregnant specimens for which both BM and CC could be directly used or estimated were selected.…”

“…A similar conclusion has been supported elsewhere, by R€ ohrs and Ebinger (2001) in land mammals using a similar data set, and by Ruff et al (1997) in primates. On the other hand, Isler et al (2008) found that brain volume scales isometrically with respect to CC in non-human primates, but their data set does not include humans, in which CC deviates strongly from BM (Reite et al, 2010;Zollikofer and De Le on, 2013).…”