Regional Deficits in Brain Volume in Schizophrenia: A Meta-Analysis of Voxel-Based Morphometry Studies

Abstract

This review implicates the left superior temporal gyrus and the left medial temporal lobe as key regions of structural difference in patients with schizophrenia, compared to healthy subjects. The diversity of regions reported in voxel-based morphometry studies is in part related to the choice of variables in the automated process, such as smoothing kernel size and linear versus affine transformation, as well as to differences in patient groups. Voxel-based morphometry can be used as an exploratory whole-brain approach to identify abnormal brain regions in schizophrenia, which should then be validated by using region-of-interest analyses.

The Effects of Antipsychotics on the Brain: What Have We Learnt from Structural Imaging of Schizophrenia? – A Systematic Review

“…Neuroimaging studies indicate that schizophrenia is associated with neuroanatomical abnormalities, with robust evidence of reduced GM volume in a number of cerebral regions [9,10]. In particular these studies demonstrated volumetric reductions in the whole brain, in the prefrontal cortex and in the superior and medial temporal lobes [4,[11][12][13][14]. These neuroimaging findings are also supported by post-mortem studies [15,16].…”

“…Studies of patients with schizophrenia demonstrate robust volumetric reductions in multiple brain regions and particularly in the prefrontal cortex and of the superior and medial temporal lobes and in the anterior cingulate [4,[11][12][13][14].…”

“…However, modern neuroimaging techniques have enabled us to examine the brains of patients with schizophrenia in vivo. A large body of neuroimaging studies have reported that as the illness proceeds, patients rapidly lose cerebral gray matter (GM), particularly in the frontal, temporal and limbic lobes [3,4]. The treatment of schizophrenia involves the use of antipsychotic drugs (typical antipsychotics, such as haloperidol), which act as antagonists at central dopamine D 2 receptors [5,6], although some of them have additional effects on other receptors [7].…”

Fully-Automated Volumetric MRI with Normative Ranges: Translation to Clinical Practice

“…While hippocampal atrophy is profound in AD, and AD is possibly the most common cause of hippocampal atrophy, AD is not the only disorder associated with hippocampal atrophy. Disorders such as schizophrenia [10], traumatic brain injury [11], frontotemporal dementia [12], epilepsy [13] and even depression [14] have been associated with some degree of hippocampal volume loss. Sensitivity and specificity values for hippocampal vMRI in AD are commonly reported in the literature relative to healthy elderly patients, but in clinical practice, the comparison group is rather different and consists of patients with other causes of memory impairment.…”

Grey-matter texture abnormalities and reduced hippocampal volume are distinguishing features of schizophrenia

“…However, there also remains variability across studies in the observed magnitude and distribution of such local volume reductions (Shenton et al, 2001;Shepherd et al, 2012). Some of the most replicated findings suggest grey-matter volume is reduced across large networks, differentially involving frontal, temporal, limbic, thalamic and striatal regions (Fornito et al, 2009;Honea et al, 2005). Regional grey-matter volume is influenced by interacting genetic and environmental factors (Wright et al, 2002;Cannon and Keller, 2006) expressed through cytoarchitectural differences (Hof et al, 2003;Schmitt et al, 2008).…”