Structural neuroimaging in schizophrenia from methods to insights to treatments

Shenton, Martha E.; Whitford, Thomas J.; Kubicki, Marek

doi:10.31887/dcns.2010.12.3/mshenton

Cited by 136 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 65 publications

(24 reference statements)

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“…Since the early observation of enlarged ventricles ( 130 ) in schizophrenia, there have been numerous computed tomography (CT) and structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies of the brain in this disorder. A number of reviews of this literature are available ( 131 , 132 ). Overall, these reviews have shown that patients with schizophrenia, when compared to healthy controls, show gray matter volume reductions in a number of brain areas.…”

Section: Genetic Cognitive and Neurobiological Studies Of Schizotypmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genetics, Cognition, and Neurobiology of Schizotypal Personality: A Review of the Overlap with Schizophrenia

et al. 2014

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Schizotypy refers to a set of temporally stable traits that are observed in the general population and that resemble the signs and symptoms of schizophrenia. Here, we review evidence from studies on genetics, cognition, perception, motor and oculomotor control, brain structure, brain function, and psychopharmacology in schizotypy. We specifically focused on identifying areas of overlap between schizotypy and schizophrenia. Evidence was corroborated that significant overlap exists between the two, covering the behavioral brain structural and functional as well molecular levels. In particular, several studies showed that individuals with high levels of schizotypal traits exhibit alterations in neurocognitive task performance and underlying brain function similar to the deficits seen in patients with schizophrenia. Studies of brain structure have shown both volume reductions and increase in schizotypy, pointing to schizophrenia-like deficits as well as possible protective or compensatory mechanisms. Experimental pharmacological studies have shown that high levels of schizotypy are associated with (i) enhanced dopaminergic response in striatum following administration of amphetamine and (ii) improvement of cognitive performance following administration of antipsychotic compounds. Together, this body of work suggests that schizotypy shows overlap with schizophrenia across multiple behavioral and neurobiological domains, suggesting that the study of schizotypal traits may be useful in improving our understanding of the etiology of schizophrenia.

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Section: Genetic Cognitive and Neurobiological Studies Of Schizotypmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genetics, Cognition, and Neurobiology of Schizotypal Personality: A Review of the Overlap with Schizophrenia

et al. 2014

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“…The frontal lobe is one of the major regions to receive attention in the search for the neural substrates of schizophrenia. Several MRI studies have reported volume reductions in schizophrenia (see review by Shenton et al [ 11 ••]). Involvement of the frontal lobe has been related to negative symptoms and cognitive impairments in schizophrenia, including deficits in executive and problem-solving functions and working memory [ 12 , 13 ].…”

Section: Structural Mri Studies Of Schizotypal Personality Disordermentioning

confidence: 99%

A Review of Structural MRI and Diffusion Tensor Imaging in Schizotypal Personality Disorder

Hazlett

Goldstein

Kolaitis

2011

Curr Psychiatry Rep

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Individuals with schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) share genetic, phenomenologic, and cognitive abnormalities with people diagnosed with schizophrenia. To date, 15 structural MRI studies of the brain have examined size, and 3 diffusion tensor imaging studies have examined white matter connectivity in SPD. Overall, both types of structural neuroimaging modalities have shown temporal lobe abnormalities similar to those observed in schizophrenia, while frontal lobe regions appear to show more sparing. This intriguing pattern suggests that frontal lobe sparing may suppress psychosis, which is consistent with the idea of a possible neuroprotective factor. In this paper, we review these 18 studies and discuss whether individuals with SPD who both resemble and differ from schizophrenia patients in their phenomenology, share some or all of the structural brain imaging characteristics of schizophrenia. We attempt to group the MRI abnormalities in SPD into three patterns: 1) a spectrum of severity—abnormalities are similar to those observed in schizophrenia but not so severe; 2) a spectrum of region—abnormalities affecting some, but not all, brain regions affected in schizophrenia; and 3) a spectrum of compensation—abnormalities reflecting greater-than-normal white matter volume, possibly serving as a buffer or compensatory mechanism protecting the individual with SPD from the frank psychosis observed in schizophrenia.

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“…In the present study, regional cortical volumes generated using automated segmentation and parcellation by FreeSurfer [ 32 ] did not show significant volumetric differences between schizophrenia and healthy control subjects. Previous ROI-based analyses using manual, semi-automated and fully automated regional parcellation schemes have reported morphometric abnormalities in schizophrenia subjects [ 3 , 10 , 12 ]. Many of these studies are limited by small sample sizes ( N = 12-22) [ 33 , 34 ], variable duration of illness and clinical heterogeneity [ 18 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Brain morphometric abnormalities have been extensively reported in schizophrenia for more than three decades. Following the initial report of brain volume reductions in schizophrenia by Johnstone et al [ 1 ] in their computerized tomographic (CT) study, there have been an ever-increasing number of reports of brain morphometric abnormalities in schizophrenia using more powerful imaging modalities [ 2 , 3 ]. These studies have used various quantitative measurements such as ventricular: brain ratio (VBR), whole brain volume, lobar volumes, volumes generated by region-of-interest (ROI)-based parcellation of cortical and subcortical structures using manual or semi-automated methods, as well as whole-brain voxel-based or surface-based analyses [ 3 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Following the initial report of brain volume reductions in schizophrenia by Johnstone et al [ 1 ] in their computerized tomographic (CT) study, there have been an ever-increasing number of reports of brain morphometric abnormalities in schizophrenia using more powerful imaging modalities [ 2 , 3 ]. These studies have used various quantitative measurements such as ventricular: brain ratio (VBR), whole brain volume, lobar volumes, volumes generated by region-of-interest (ROI)-based parcellation of cortical and subcortical structures using manual or semi-automated methods, as well as whole-brain voxel-based or surface-based analyses [ 3 ]. The majority of whole-brain morphometric studies have used Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) implemented in the Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM) software (Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience, London; http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm ) or surface-based analysis implemented using the FMRIB Software Library (FSL) [ 4 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A systematic examination of brain volumetric abnormalities in recent-onset schizophrenia using voxel-based, surface-based and region-of-interest-based morphometric analyses

John

Lukose

Bagepally

et al. 2015

J Negat Results BioMed

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BackgroundBrain morphometric abnormalities in schizophrenia have been extensively reported in the literature. Whole-brain volumetric reductions are almost universally reported by most studies irrespective of the characteristics of the samples studied (e.g., chronic/recent-onset; medicated/neuroleptic-naïve etc.). However, the same cannot be said of the reported regional morphometric abnormalities in schizophrenia. While certain regional morphometric abnormalities are more frequently reported than others, there are no such abnormalities that are universally reported across studies. Variability of socio-demographic and clinical characteristics across study samples as well as technical and methodological issues related to acquisition and analyses of brain structural images may contribute to inconsistency of brain morphometric findings in schizophrenia. The objective of the present study therefore was to systematically examine brain morphometry in patients with recent-onset schizophrenia to find out if there are significant whole-brain or regional volumetric differences detectable at the appropriate significance threshold, after attempting to control for various confounding factors that could impact brain volumes.MethodsStructural magnetic resonance images of 90 subjects (schizophrenia = 45; healthy subjects = 45) were acquired using a 3 Tesla magnet. Morphometric analyses were carried out following standard analyses pipelines of three most commonly used strategies, viz., whole-brain voxel-based morphometry, whole-brain surface-based morphometry, and between-group comparisons of regional volumes generated by automated segmentation and parcellation.ResultsIn our sample of patients having recent-onset schizophrenia with limited neuroleptic exposure, there were no significant whole brain or regional brain morphometric abnormalities noted at the appropriate statistical significance thresholds with or without including age, gender and intracranial volume or total brain volume in the statistical analyses.ConclusionsIn the background of the conflicting findings in the literature, our findings indicate that brain morphometric abnormalities may not be directly related to the schizophrenia phenotype. Analysis of the reasons for the inconsistent results across studies as well as consideration of alternate sources of variability of brain morphology in schizophrenia such as epistatic and epigenetic mechanisms could perhaps advance our understanding of structural brain alterations in schizophrenia.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12952-015-0030-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Structural neuroimaging in schizophrenia from methods to insights to treatments

Cited by 136 publications

References 65 publications

Genetics, Cognition, and Neurobiology of Schizotypal Personality: A Review of the Overlap with Schizophrenia

Genetics, Cognition, and Neurobiology of Schizotypal Personality: A Review of the Overlap with Schizophrenia

A Review of Structural MRI and Diffusion Tensor Imaging in Schizotypal Personality Disorder

A systematic examination of brain volumetric abnormalities in recent-onset schizophrenia using voxel-based, surface-based and region-of-interest-based morphometric analyses

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