Rudolf Magnus Institute for Neuroscience, Department of Psychiatry, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Int J Neuropsychopharmacol. 2012 Mar;15(2):281-8. doi: 10.1017/S1461145711000794. Epub 2011 May 20.
Volumetric differences of the hypothalamus and/or the pituitary gland tend to support involvement of the HPA axis in psychotic disorders. These structures were manually outlined in 154 schizophrenia patients and 156 matched healthy comparison subjects by MRI brain images. Linear regression analyses were performed to investigate differences in volume between groups. Moreover, the effects of illness duration and type of medication were investigated. No significant differences were found between patients and healthy controls in volumes of the hypothalamus and pituitary gland. In addition, there were no differences in volumes between patients with short and long illness duration. There was a trend towards patients receiving typical antipsychotic medication at the time of scanning having larger pituitary volumes than patients receiving atypical medication. These findings indicate that volume decreases in brain structures important for the normal functioning of the HPA axis are not present, either in recent-onset or chronically ill patients.
下丘脑和/或垂体的体积差异往往支持 HPA 轴在精神疾病中的作用。通过 MRI 脑图像，对 154 名精神分裂症患者和 156 名匹配的健康对照者进行了这些结构的手动轮廓描绘。进行线性回归分析以研究组间体积差异。此外，还研究了疾病持续时间和药物类型的影响。在下丘脑和垂体的体积方面，患者与健康对照组之间未发现显著差异。此外，在疾病持续时间短和长的患者之间，体积没有差异。有一个趋势表明，在扫描时接受典型抗精神病药物治疗的患者的垂体体积大于接受非典型药物治疗的患者。这些发现表明，在近期发病或慢性发病的患者中，HPA 轴正常功能的重要脑结构的体积减少并不存在。
