Hazlett E A, Buchsbaum M S, Byne W, Wei T C, Spiegel-Cohen J, Geneve C, Kinderlehrer R, Haznedar M M, Shihabuddin L, Siever L J
Department of Psychiatry, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY 10029-6574, USA.
Am J Psychiatry. 1999 Aug;156(8):1190-9. doi: 10.1176/ajp.156.8.1190.
In an exploration of the schizophrenia spectrum, the authors compared thalamic size, shape, and metabolic activity in unmedicated patients with schizophrenia and schizotypal personality disorder to findings in age- and sex-matched healthy control subjects.
Coregistered magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography scans were obtained in 27 schizophrenic patients, 13 patients with schizotypal personality disorder, and 32 control subjects who performed a serial verbal learning test during tracer uptake. After thalamus edges were outlined on 1.2-mm MRI scans, a radial warping program yielded significance probability mapping in three dimensions.
Significance probability mapping (with resampling) identified an area in the region of the mediodorsal nucleus bilaterally with significantly lower relative metabolism in the schizophrenia group than in either the control or schizotypal personality disorder groups, which did not differ from each other. The three groups did not differ significantly in total thalamic volume in square millimeters or thalamic volume relative to brain volume. Shape analyses revealed that schizophrenic patients had significantly fewer pixels in the left anterior region, whereas patients with schizotypal personality disorder had significantly fewer pixels in the region of the right mediodorsal nucleus than did control subjects.
Schizophrenic patients showed significant metabolism and shape differences from control subjects in selective subregions of the thalamus, whereas patients with schizotypal personality disorder showed only a difference in shape. Because the mediodorsal and anterior nuclei have different connections with limbic and prefrontal structures, the anterior thalamic shrinkage and mediodorsal metabolic and shape changes might relate to the different clinical pictures in schizotypal personality disorder and schizophrenia.
在对精神分裂症谱系的探索中，作者将未接受药物治疗的精神分裂症患者和分裂型人格障碍患者的丘脑大小、形状及代谢活性与年龄和性别匹配的健康对照者的相关结果进行比较。
对27例精神分裂症患者、13例分裂型人格障碍患者和32名对照者进行了磁共振成像（MRI）和正电子发射断层扫描的配准，这些对照者在示踪剂摄取期间进行了系列言语学习测试。在1.2毫米的MRI扫描上勾勒出丘脑边缘后，一个径向变形程序生成了三维的显著性概率图谱。
显著性概率图谱（采用重采样）确定，双侧背内侧核区域有一个区域，精神分裂症组的相对代谢显著低于对照组或分裂型人格障碍组，而后两组之间无差异。三组在以平方毫米计的丘脑总体积或相对于脑体积的丘脑体积方面无显著差异。形状分析显示，精神分裂症患者左前区的像素明显较少，而分裂型人格障碍患者右背内侧核区域的像素明显少于对照者。
精神分裂症患者在丘脑的选择性亚区域显示出与对照者在代谢和形状上的显著差异，而分裂型人格障碍患者仅在形状上存在差异。由于背内侧核和前核与边缘系统和前额叶结构有不同的连接，丘脑前部萎缩以及背内侧核的代谢和形状变化可能与分裂型人格障碍和精神分裂症不同的临床表现有关。
