Pakkenberg B
Neurological Research Laboratory, Bartholin Instituttet, Kommunehospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Schizophr Res. 1992 Jul;7(2):95-100. doi: 10.1016/0920-9964(92)90038-7.
Reductions of 40% in total cell number and 25% in volume of the mediodorsal thalamic nucleus were recently reported in an unbiased neurostereological study of neuroleptic-treated schizophrenic patients. In order to investigate whether these results might be secondary to many years of treatment with neuroleptic drugs, eight brains from schizophrenics never treated with neuroleptics and eight controls were studied using the unbiased Cavalieri volume estimator. To compare left-right differences in this region, twelve neuroleptic-treated schizophrenics and eleven control cases were compared. The brains used for the left-right comparison study and five of 20 used for comparison of treated and untreated brain volumes have been used in an earlier study. The mediodorsal thalamus volume was reduced by 31% in untreated schizophrenics and by 22% in neuroleptic-treated schizophrenics. No differences were found in mean total volume of the left and right mediodorsal thalamus in brains from controls nor from schizophrenics. A major difference exists with respect to time of fixation in controls (12 years) and untreated schizophrenics (39 years) that makes shrinkage differences a possible confounding variable. The results suggest that the consistent reduction in number of neurons in the mediodorsal thalamic nucleus are not secondary to prolonged treatment with neuroleptic drugs and that asymmetry in this specific brain region is not a feature of the schizophrenia-afflicted brain.
最近在一项对接受抗精神病药物治疗的精神分裂症患者的无偏倚神经立体学研究中报告称，丘脑背内侧核的细胞总数减少了40%，体积减少了25%。为了研究这些结果是否可能是多年使用抗精神病药物治疗的继发效应，使用无偏倚的卡瓦列里体积估计器对8例从未接受过抗精神病药物治疗的精神分裂症患者的大脑和8例对照者的大脑进行了研究。为了比较该区域的左右差异，对12例接受抗精神病药物治疗的精神分裂症患者和11例对照病例进行了比较。用于左右比较研究的大脑以及用于比较治疗组和未治疗组脑体积的20个大脑中的5个，已用于早期研究。未治疗的精神分裂症患者的丘脑背内侧核体积减少了31%，接受抗精神病药物治疗的精神分裂症患者的丘脑背内侧核体积减少了22%。在对照组和精神分裂症患者的大脑中，丘脑背内侧核左右平均总体积均未发现差异。对照组（12年）和未治疗的精神分裂症患者（39年）的固定时间存在重大差异，这使得收缩差异成为一个可能的混杂变量。结果表明，丘脑背内侧核神经元数量的持续减少并非抗精神病药物长期治疗的继发效应，并且这个特定脑区的不对称性不是精神分裂症患者大脑的特征。
