Common pattern of gray-matter abnormalities in drug-naive and medicated first-episode schizophrenia: a multimodal meta-analysis

Abstract

Studies of schizophrenia at drug-naive state and on antipsychotic medication have reported a number of regions of gray-matter (GM) abnormalities but the reports have been inconsistent. The aim of this study was to conduct multimodal meta-analysis to compare the cross-sectional voxel-based morphometry studies of brain GM in antipsychotic-naive first-episode schizophrenia (AN-FES) and those with antipsychotic treatment within 1 year (AT-FES) to determine the similarities and differences in these groups. We conducted two separate meta-analyses containing 24 studies with a sample size of 801 patients and 957 healthy controls. A multimodal meta-analysis method was used to compare the findings between AN-FES and AT-FES. Meta-regression analyses were done to determine the influence of different variables including age, duration of illness, and positive and negative symptom scores. Finally, jack-knife analyses were done to test the robustness of the results. AN-FES and AT-FES showed common patterns of GM abnormalities in frontal (gyrus rectus), superior temporal, left hippocampal and insular cortex. GM in the left supramarginal gyrus and left middle temporal gyrus were found to be increased in AN-FES but decreased in AT-FES, whereas left median cingulate/paracingulate gyri and right hippocampus GM was decreased in AN-FES but increased in AT-FES. Findings suggest that both AN-FES and AT-FES share frontal, temporal and insular regions as common anatomical regions to be affected indicating these to be the primary regions of GM abnormalities in both groups.

Identifying Brain Abnormalities with Schizophrenia Based on a Hybrid Feature Selection Technology

“…In addition to the above findings that there exist some decreasing regions and connections, we also found that there exist some increasing regions in SMG, MFG and SFG and the increasing connectivity of MFG and superior occipital gyrus, the median cingulate and paracingulate gyri and CAU, the left and right superior parietal, as well as middle occipital gyrus and fusiform gyrus. Some corresponding conclusions were also mentioned in literatures [28,29,32]. Research showed that the connectivity of the frontoparietal network (FPN) and DMN significantly increased [65].…”

“…Moreover, all connectivity corresponding with rolandic operculum and insula significantly reduced [26][27][28][29][30][31]. The significantly increased grey matter volume of brain regions was mainly distributed in frontal gyrus (FG) and supramarginal gyrus (SMG), and there also existed four with significantly increased connectivity, such as middle frontal gyrus and superior occipital gyrus, as well as middle occipital gyrus and fusiform gyrus, and the corresponding conclusion of increasing also was discussed [28,29,32]. To further confirm the significance of the selected abnormal functional connections, we also used complex network analysis.…”

Aberrant Gray Matter Volume and Cortical Surface in Paranoid-Type Delusional Disorder

“…It is noteworthy that OFC volume increase could be observed after long-term antipsychotic treatment [67]. Also, regulation of amygdala activity by OFC during threat-related anxiety has been well-described by previous research [65,[68][69][70], so that higher GMV in this region may reflect treatment effects. Finally, non-pharmacologic structural remodeling processes may account for increased OFC volume as well [71].…”

“…Third, we detected increased OFC and superior frontal GMV in pt-DD patients compared to HC. This may appear surprising at first glance, since lower GMV in OFC could be rather expected given the recent meta-analytic evidence of lower GMV in patients with psychotic disorders [63][64][65]. In psychotic disorders, OFC volume has been previously associated with hallucinations and persecutory delusions [66].…”

Supervised Sparse Components Analysis with Application to Brain Imaging Data

“…Schizophrenia is the second most studied disorder after dementia. Shah et al [6] provide an example of multimodal meta-analysis. For Huntington's disease, white matter is evaluated using dMRI [7].…”