Hao Yihui, Yan Qiang, Liu Haihong, Xu Lin, Xue Zhimin, Song Xueqin, Kaneko Yoshio, Jiang Tianzi, Liu Zhening, Shan Baoci
Mental Health Institute, Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, PR China.
Schizophr Res. 2009 Oct;114(1-3):128-35. doi: 10.1016/j.schres.2009.07.001. Epub 2009 Jul 29.
Healthy siblings of schizophrenia patients have an almost 9-fold higher risk for developing the illness than the general population. Disruption of white matter (WM) integrity as indicated by reduced fractional anisotropy (FA) derived from diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), is believed to be the key substrate of schizophrenia. However, it remains unclear whether schizophrenia patients and their healthy siblings share a specific pattern of disruption of WM integrity that may be related to the disease risk. The objective of this study is to determine whether a specific brain regional pattern of disruption of WM integrity is shared by schizophrenia patients and their healthy siblings. We investigated brain white matter abnormalities by voxel-based analysis of white matter FA data acquired from diffusion tensor imaging in 34 pairs of schizophrenia patients and their healthy siblings, as well as in 32 healthy controls. Both schizophrenia patients and their healthy siblings showed reduced white matter FA in the left prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus in comparison to healthy controls, without significant difference between patients and siblings. In marked contrast, only schizophrenia patients exhibited reduced white matter FA in the left anterior cingulate cortex in comparison to both siblings and controls, without significant difference between siblings and controls. Thus, schizophrenia patients and their healthy siblings share disruption of WM integrity in the left prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus that may be related to higher risk of healthy siblings to develop schizophrenia, which may be eventually attributed to additional disruption of WM integrity in the left anterior cingulate cortex.
精神分裂症患者的健康兄弟姐妹患该病的风险几乎是普通人群的9倍。扩散张量成像（DTI）得出的分数各向异性（FA）降低表明白质（WM）完整性受到破坏，这被认为是精神分裂症的关键病理基础。然而，尚不清楚精神分裂症患者及其健康兄弟姐妹是否共享一种可能与疾病风险相关的WM完整性破坏的特定模式。本研究的目的是确定精神分裂症患者及其健康兄弟姐妹是否共享WM完整性破坏的特定脑区模式。我们通过基于体素的分析，对34对精神分裂症患者及其健康兄弟姐妹以及32名健康对照者的扩散张量成像获取的白质FA数据进行了研究，以调查脑白质异常情况。与健康对照相比，精神分裂症患者及其健康兄弟姐妹在左侧前额叶皮质和海马体中的白质FA均降低，患者与兄弟姐妹之间无显著差异。与之形成鲜明对比的是，与兄弟姐妹和对照相比，只有精神分裂症患者在左侧前扣带回皮质中的白质FA降低，兄弟姐妹与对照之间无显著差异。因此，精神分裂症患者及其健康兄弟姐妹在左侧前额叶皮质和海马体中共享WM完整性破坏，这可能与健康兄弟姐妹患精神分裂症的较高风险相关，这最终可能归因于左侧前扣带回皮质中WM完整性的额外破坏。
