Department of Neuropsychiatry, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, 54 Shogoin-Kawaharacho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8507, Japan.
Schizophr Res. 2011 Jan;125(1):21-9. doi: 10.1016/j.schres.2010.10.004. Epub 2010 Oct 29.
Although the effects of aging on the neural correlates of schizophrenia have been researched for many years, no clear conclusion has been reached. While some studies have demonstrated progressive age-related gray matter reductions in schizophrenia, other studies have not found evidence of progression. Moreover, it remains unclear whether the influence of aging on global or regional cortical thickness differs between schizophrenia patients and healthy controls. This study aimed to confirm previous reports of reduced cortical thickness in schizophrenia, and to investigate the effects of age on global and regional cortical thickness. Eighty-three patients with schizophrenia (six first-episode patients and 77 chronic patients; age range=18-55 years) and 90 age-, gender- and education-matched healthy controls (age range=19-56 years) underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) using a 3-Tesla scanner. Surface-based analysis was applied to assess cortical thickness in the whole brain. The patient group exhibited both global and regional cortical thinning in regions including the prefrontal and temporal cortices. The correlation between age and cortical thickness showed a similar pattern in patients and controls, both globally and regionally. These results suggest that the reduction of cortical thickness in schizophrenia might not be progressive over the course of the illness, indicating that pathological processes occur in a relatively limited period of time around the onset of illness.
尽管多年来一直在研究衰老对精神分裂症神经相关因素的影响，但尚未得出明确的结论。一些研究表明，精神分裂症患者的灰质随年龄增长而逐渐减少，而另一些研究则未发现进展的证据。此外，尚不清楚衰老对精神分裂症患者和健康对照组的全脑或局部皮质厚度的影响是否存在差异。本研究旨在证实先前关于精神分裂症皮质厚度降低的报告，并研究年龄对全脑和局部皮质厚度的影响。83 名精神分裂症患者（首发患者 6 名，慢性患者 77 名；年龄范围 18-55 岁）和 90 名年龄、性别和教育程度相匹配的健康对照者（年龄范围 19-56 岁）接受了 3.0T 磁共振成像（MRI）检查。采用基于表面的分析方法评估全脑皮质厚度。患者组在前额叶和颞叶等区域表现出全脑和局部皮质变薄。患者和对照组的年龄与皮质厚度之间的相关性在全脑和局部均表现出相似的模式。这些结果表明，精神分裂症患者的皮质厚度减少可能不是随着病程的进展而逐渐发生的，这表明病理过程发生在发病前后相对有限的时间内。
