Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, Department of Neurology, Geffen School of Medicine at University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095-7334, USA.
Biol Psychiatry. 2011 Oct 1;70(7):680-9. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2011.03.039. Epub 2011 May 14.
Structural and diffusion tensor imaging studies implicate gray and white matter (WM) abnormalities and disruptions of neural circuitry in schizophrenia. However, the structural integrity of the superficial WM, comprising short-range association (U-fibers) and intracortical axons, has not been investigated in schizophrenia.
High-resolution structural and diffusion tensor images and sophisticated cortical pattern matching methods were used to measure and compare global and local variations in superficial WM fractional anisotropy between schizophrenia patients and their relatives and community comparison subjects and their relatives (n = 150).
Compared with control subjects, patients showed reduced superficial WM fractional anisotropy distributed across each hemisphere, particularly in left temporal and bilateral occipital regions (all p < .05, corrected). Furthermore, by modeling biological risk for schizophrenia in patients, patient relatives, and control subjects, fractional anisotropy was shown to vary in accordance with relatedness to a patient in both hemispheres and in the temporal and occipital lobes (p < .05, corrected). However, effects did not survive correction procedures for two-group comparisons between patient relatives and control subjects.
Results extend previous findings restricted to deep WM pathways to demonstrate that disturbances in corticocortical connectivity are associated with schizophrenia and might indicate a genetic predisposition for the disorder. Because the structural integrity of WM plays a crucial role in the functionality of networks linking gray matter regions, disturbances in the coherence and organization of fibers at the juncture of the neuropil might relate to features of schizophrenia at least partially attributable to disease-related genetic factors.
结构和扩散张量成像研究表明精神分裂症存在灰质和白质（WM）异常以及神经回路中断。然而，尚未研究精神分裂症中浅层 WM（包括短程联合[U-纤维]和皮质内轴突）的结构完整性。
使用高分辨率结构和扩散张量图像以及复杂的皮质模式匹配方法，测量和比较精神分裂症患者及其亲属以及社区对照受试者及其亲属（n=150）之间浅层 WM 各向异性分数的全局和局部变化。
与对照组相比，患者表现出分布于每个半球的浅层 WM 各向异性分数降低，尤其是在左侧颞叶和双侧枕叶区域（均 p<.05，校正后）。此外，通过对患者、患者亲属和对照组的精神分裂症生物学风险建模，表明各向异性分数在两个半球以及颞叶和枕叶中与与患者的亲缘关系有关（p<.05，校正后）。然而，在患者亲属和对照组之间的两组比较的校正程序中，这些效应并未幸存。
结果扩展了先前仅限于深 WM 通路的发现，表明皮质内连接的紊乱与精神分裂症有关，并且可能表明该疾病存在遗传易感性。由于 WM 的结构完整性在连接灰质区域的网络功能中起着至关重要的作用，因此神经胶质交界处纤维的连贯性和组织紊乱可能与至少部分归因于疾病相关遗传因素的精神分裂症特征有关。
