LENITEM-Laboratory of Epidemiology, Neuroimaging and Telemedicine, IRCCS Centro San Giovanni di Dio FBF, The National Centre for Research and Care of Alzheimer's and Mental Diseases, Brescia, Italy.
Psychiatry Res. 2011 May 31;192(2):77-83. doi: 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2010.12.015. Epub 2011 Apr 1.
Patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and schizophrenia display cognitive, behavioural disturbances and morphological abnormalities. Although these latter reflect progressive neurodegeneration in AD, their significance in schizophrenia is still unclear. We explored the patterns of hippocampal and amygdalar atrophy in those patients and their associations with clinical parameters. Structural magnetic resonance imaging was performed in 20 elderly schizophrenia patients, 20 AD and 19 healthy older controls. Hippocampal and amygdalar volumes were obtained by manual segmentation with a standardized protocol and compared among groups. In both schizophrenia and AD patients, left hippocampal and amygdalar volumes were significantly smaller. The hippocampus/amygdala ratio was significantly lower in schizophrenia compared to both AD cases [2.4 bilaterally, 95% C.I. 2.2 to 2.7] and healthy controls bilaterally [2.5, 95% C.I. 2.3 to 2.9 in left and 2.7, 95% C.I. 2.4 to 3.1 in right hemisphere]. In schizophrenia patients, a significant positive correlation was found between age at disease onset and the right hippocampus/amygdala volume ratio (Spearman rho=0.56). Negative symptoms correlated with higher right/left amygdala volume ratio (Spearman's rho=0.43). Our data show that unlike AD, the hippocampus/amygdala ratio is abnormally low and correlates with the age at onset in schizophrenia, being a neurodevelopmental signature of the disease.
阿尔茨海默病（AD）和精神分裂症患者表现出认知、行为障碍和形态异常。尽管这些异常反映了 AD 的进行性神经退行性变，但它们在精神分裂症中的意义仍不清楚。我们探讨了这些患者的海马体和杏仁核萎缩模式及其与临床参数的关系。对 20 名老年精神分裂症患者、20 名 AD 患者和 19 名健康老年人进行了结构磁共振成像。采用标准化方案进行手动分割，以获得海马体和杏仁核体积，并对各组进行比较。在精神分裂症和 AD 患者中，左海马体和杏仁核体积明显较小。与 AD 病例相比，精神分裂症患者的海马体/杏仁核比值显著降低[双侧 2.4，95%置信区间 2.2 至 2.7]和健康对照组双侧[左侧 2.5，95%置信区间 2.3 至 2.9，右侧 2.7，95%置信区间 2.4 至 3.1]。在精神分裂症患者中，发现疾病发病年龄与右侧海马体/杏仁核体积比之间存在显著正相关（Spearman rho=0.56）。阴性症状与较高的右侧/左侧杏仁核体积比相关（Spearman's rho=0.43）。我们的数据表明，与 AD 不同，海马体/杏仁核比值异常低，并与精神分裂症的发病年龄相关，是该疾病的神经发育特征。
