Diffusion tensor imaging in the early phase of schizophrenia: What have we learned?

Patterns of Brain Structural Changes in First-Contact, Antipsychotic Drug-Naïve Patients with Schizophrenia

“…In addition, although the exclusion of patients with a lifetime history of Axis I disorders precludes a major effect of cannabis abuse on our find-ings, a possible influence of a sporadic use of cannabis during adolescence cannot be excluded. 1 In patients with recent-onset schizophrenia, a study found that cannabis use before age 17 years was related with increased FA in several brain regions, including the uncinate fasciculus, internal capsule, and frontal WM, compared with patients without a history cannabis use and compared with control participants. 40 In another study, the authors found that compared with cannabis-naïve patients with schizophrenia, patients who used cannabis showed increased FA in the splenium of the corpus callosum.…”

“…As normal brain functions are served by networks of cortical and subcortical areas, disturbed communication ("dysconnectivity") within and between brain regions may be the core pathologic feature of schizophrenia. 1 In this context, the contribution of neuroimaging techniques has proved to be relevant. Structural MR imaging studies have shown that reductions of GM volume occur in the brain of patients with schizophrenia compared with healthy control participants, though increased GM volumes of some subcortical regions have also been reported.…”

Diffusion magnetic resonance imaging for Brainnetome: A critical review

“…Recently, there have been increasing numbers of dMRI network-based studies of neuropsychiatric diseases [88] , such as MDD [4] , bipolar disorder [15] , normal aging [9] , AD [16] , schizophrenia [17] , epilepsy [18] , language disorders [89] , motor disorders [90] , and recovery of function after a stroke and other traumatic brain injuries [91,92] . From the network perspective, research on neuropsychiatric disease using dMRI can be classified into three types: specific nodebased, regional network-based and global network-based.…”

“…To date, it is the only non-invasive method for revealing the micro-geometry of nervous tissues and exploring white matter fiber connectivities in living human subjects. Increasing numbers of reports reveal altered networks of white matter microstructure (WMM) in neuropsychiatric disorders, such as MDD [4] , bipolar disorder [15] , AD [16] , schizophrenia [17] and epilepsy [18] , as well as in development [7,8] and healthy aging [9] .…”

Radiologic Imaging in Psychiatric Disorders in the Light of Recent Developments

“…In addition to these data, there is also a growing body of evidence suggesting a disturbance in the connection between different brain regions, which was just a theory, approximately 5 to 10 years ago. Here, with DTI, a technique that would roughly solve these connections at least for now, it is possible to evaluate the organization and coherence of fiber tracts of white matter (Peters et al, 2010). Although the techniques are insensitive to fiber tract, there are studies that DSI (diffusion spectrum imaging) could reflect the information about direction on the screen as differences in color-coding (Konrad et al, 2010).…”