Benes F M, Sorensen I, Bird E D
McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA 02178.
Schizophr Bull. 1991;17(4):597-608. doi: 10.1093/schbul/17.4.597.
The hippocampus, an integral component of the corticolimbic circuitry of the brain, has been recently implicated in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. This article has employed quantitative morphometric techniques to determine whether abnormalities of posterior hippocampal cross-sectional area, as well as the number, size, and degree of disarray of pyramidal neurons were present in 9 control and 14 schizophrenic subjects. Seven schizophrenic patients showed evidence of superimposed mood disturbance (schizoaffective type), while the remaining seven were a mixture of paranoid, undifferentiated, and catatonic types. All morphometric measurements were conducted under strictly blind conditions; stepwise multiple regression and analyses of covariance were used to evaluate the effects of various confounding variables. There were no differences in the cross-sectional size of the hippocampus or degree of neuronal disarray between the two groups. Similarly, the number of pyramidal neurons was also the same in sectors Cornu Ammonis (CA) 2, CA 3, and CA 4 for the controls and schizophrenic subjects. In CA 1, the schizophrenic subjects without mood disturbances showed a significant reduction (36%) of pyramidal neuron numbers when compared with those of both controls and patients with mood disturbance. Pyramidal neurons were smaller in all sectors of the schizophrenic specimens, CA 1 (p less than or equal to 0.01), CA 2 (p less than or equal to 0.01), CA 3 (p less than or equal to 0.01), and CA 4 (p less than or equal to 0.005), but there were no differences with respect to the presence of mood disturbances. Corrections for the effects of age, postmortem interval, fixation interval, hypoxia, and neuroleptic exposure did not alter the pattern in the data. The significance of a smaller size of hippocampal pyramidal neurons in this group of schizophrenic specimens is unclear, but it is consistent with the suggestions of other laboratories that there may be altered function of this brain region in chronically psychotic individuals.
海马体是大脑皮质边缘回路的一个重要组成部分，最近被认为与精神分裂症的病理生理学有关。本文采用定量形态测量技术，以确定9名对照者和14名精神分裂症患者是否存在海马体后部横截面积异常，以及锥体细胞的数量、大小和排列紊乱程度。7名精神分裂症患者表现出叠加性情绪障碍（精神分裂症情感型）的证据，其余7名患者则为偏执型、未分化型和紧张型的混合类型。所有形态测量均在严格的盲法条件下进行；采用逐步多元回归和协方差分析来评估各种混杂变量的影响。两组之间海马体的横截面积或神经元排列紊乱程度没有差异。同样，对照者和精神分裂症患者在海马角（CA）2、CA3和CA4区域的锥体细胞数量也相同。在CA1区域，无情绪障碍的精神分裂症患者与对照者及有情绪障碍的患者相比，锥体细胞数量显著减少（36%）。精神分裂症标本的所有区域（CA1，p≤0.01；CA2，p≤0.01；CA3，p≤0.01；CA4，p≤0.005）的锥体细胞都较小，但在情绪障碍的存在方面没有差异。对年龄、死后间隔时间、固定间隔时间、缺氧和抗精神病药物暴露的影响进行校正后，并未改变数据中的模式。这组精神分裂症标本中海马体锥体细胞较小的意义尚不清楚，但与其他实验室的观点一致，即慢性精神病患者的这个脑区可能存在功能改变。
