Abstract:Schizotypal personality disorder is the prototype of the schizophrenia-related personality disorders and has been demonstrated to have phenomenologic, biologic, treatment, and outcome characteristics similar to those of schizophrenic patients. These studies suggest that patients with schizotypal personality disorder, like schizophrenic patients, show cognitive impairment, but the impairment is more focal and involves primarily working memory, verbal learning, and sustained attention rather than generalized int… Show more
“…The pattern of disrupted cingulum FA in the present study is complex but generally consistent with prior work in schizophrenia. Our finding of reduced FA in posterior cingulum (BA31 and BA23) is consistent with schizophrenia work showing similar reductions 4, 8, 11 and posterior cingulum is implicated in visuo-spatial function, memory function and self-referential processing which are areas where SPD individuals evidence deficiencies 65 . The finding of increased FA in anterior cingulum (BA25) is supported by work showing increased FA in left subgenual anterior cingulum white matter (and some other regions) in individuals at high genetic risk for schizophrenia 64 .…”
Background
Consistent with the clinical picture of milder symptomatology in schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) than schizophrenia, morphological studies indicate SPD abnormalities in temporal lobe regions but to a much lesser extent in prefrontal regions implicated in schizophrenia. Lower fractional anisotropy (FA), a measure of white-matter integrity within prefrontal, temporal, and cingulate regions has been reported in schizophrenia but has been little studied in SPD.
Aims
To examine temporal and prefrontal FA in 30 neuroleptic-naïve SPD patients and 35 matched healthy controls. We hypothesized that compared with healthy controls (HCs), SPD patients would exhibit lower FA in temporal and anterior cingulum regions but relative sparing in prefrontal regions.
Method
We acquired diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in all participants and examined FA in the white matter underlying Brodmann areas (BAs) in dorsolateral prefrontal (BA44,45,46), temporal (BA22,21,20), and cingulum (BA25,24,31,23,29) regions using multivariate-ANOVAs.
Results
Compared with healthy controls, the SPD group had significantly lower FA in left temporal but not prefrontal regions. In the cingulum, FA was lower in the SPD group in posterior regions (BA31 and 23), higher in anterior (BA25) regions and lower overall in the right but not left cingulum. Among the SPD group, lower FA in the cingulum was associated with more severe negative symptoms (e.g., odd speech).
Conclusions
Similar to schizophrenia, our results indicate cingulum-temporal lobe FA abnormalities in SPD and suggest that cingulum abnormalities are associated with negative symptoms.
“…The pattern of disrupted cingulum FA in the present study is complex but generally consistent with prior work in schizophrenia. Our finding of reduced FA in posterior cingulum (BA31 and BA23) is consistent with schizophrenia work showing similar reductions 4, 8, 11 and posterior cingulum is implicated in visuo-spatial function, memory function and self-referential processing which are areas where SPD individuals evidence deficiencies 65 . The finding of increased FA in anterior cingulum (BA25) is supported by work showing increased FA in left subgenual anterior cingulum white matter (and some other regions) in individuals at high genetic risk for schizophrenia 64 .…”
Background
Consistent with the clinical picture of milder symptomatology in schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) than schizophrenia, morphological studies indicate SPD abnormalities in temporal lobe regions but to a much lesser extent in prefrontal regions implicated in schizophrenia. Lower fractional anisotropy (FA), a measure of white-matter integrity within prefrontal, temporal, and cingulate regions has been reported in schizophrenia but has been little studied in SPD.
Aims
To examine temporal and prefrontal FA in 30 neuroleptic-naïve SPD patients and 35 matched healthy controls. We hypothesized that compared with healthy controls (HCs), SPD patients would exhibit lower FA in temporal and anterior cingulum regions but relative sparing in prefrontal regions.
Method
We acquired diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in all participants and examined FA in the white matter underlying Brodmann areas (BAs) in dorsolateral prefrontal (BA44,45,46), temporal (BA22,21,20), and cingulum (BA25,24,31,23,29) regions using multivariate-ANOVAs.
Results
Compared with healthy controls, the SPD group had significantly lower FA in left temporal but not prefrontal regions. In the cingulum, FA was lower in the SPD group in posterior regions (BA31 and 23), higher in anterior (BA25) regions and lower overall in the right but not left cingulum. Among the SPD group, lower FA in the cingulum was associated with more severe negative symptoms (e.g., odd speech).
Conclusions
Similar to schizophrenia, our results indicate cingulum-temporal lobe FA abnormalities in SPD and suggest that cingulum abnormalities are associated with negative symptoms.
“…For example, a number of studies (cf. Kline & Cooper, 1986;O'Reilly et al, 2001;Eysenck and Furnham, 1993;Gianotti et al, 2001;Merten and Fischer, 1999;Poreh et al, 1993) reported a positive relationship between creativity and schizotypy, which is associated with dopamine-related genes (Ettinger et al, 2006) and overactivity of subcortical dopaminergic systems (Kirrane and Siever, 2000). Furthermore, dopamine antagonists, generally used as antipsychotics, suppress creativity (Flaherty, 2005).…”
“…While both SPD and BPD patients exhibit symptoms that have been linked to temporal and frontal lobe abnormalities, these symptoms differ phenomenologically from one another. Specifically, emotion dysregulation and impulsivity are hallmark features of BPD (Skodol et al, 2002), while blunted affect and executive dysfunction are frequently associated with SPD (Kirrane and Siever, 2000). In this sense, abnormal volume in prefrontal and temporal regions may underlie affect-related symptoms in BPD (Soloff et al, 2008); in SPD, abnormal frontal and temporal lobe volume may be associated with cognitive and/or executive functioning deficits (McCloskey et al, 2005).…”
Background
Superior temporal gyrus (STG/BA22) volume is reduced in schizophrenia and to a milder degree in schizotypal personality disorder (SPD), representing a less severe disorder in the schizophrenia-spectrum. SPD and Borderline personality disorder (BPD) are severe personality disorders characterized by social and cognitive dysfunction. However, while SPD is characterized by social withdrawal/anhedonia, BPD is marked by hyper-reactivity to interpersonal stimuli and hyper-emotionality. This is the first morphometric study to directly compare SPD and BPD patients in temporal volume.
Methods
We compared three age-gender- and education-matched groups: 27 unmedicated SPD individuals with no BPD traits, 52 unmedicated BPD individuals with no SPD traits, and 45 healthy controls. We examined gray matter volume of frontal and temporal lobe Brodmann areas (BAs), and dorsal/ventral amygdala from 3T magnetic resonance imaging.
Results
In the STG, an auditory association area reported to be dysfunctional in SPD and BPD, the SPD patients had significantly smaller volume than healthy controls and BPD patients. No group differences were found between BPD patients and controls. Smaller BA22 volume was associated with greater symptom severity in SPD patients. Reduced STG volume may be an important endophenotype for schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. SPD is distinct from BPD in terms of STG volume abnormalities which may reflect different underlying pathophysiological mechanisms and could help discriminate between them.
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