Henze Romy, Brunner Romuald, Thiemann Ulf, Parzer Peter, Klein Jan, Resch Franz, Stieltjes Bram
Section Disorders of Personality Development, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Center for Psychosocial Medicine, University of Heidelberg, Germany; the Section Quantitative Imaging-based Disease Characterization, Department of Radiology, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany.
J Neuroimaging. 2014 Mar-Apr;24(2):111-6. doi: 10.1111/j.1552-6569.2011.00668.x. Epub 2012 Jan 23.
Previous studies have found gray matter alterations in the cerebellum and in the visual system in both adults and adolescents with schizophrenia. The present study was conducted to investigate whether white matter tracts associated with these regions are also affected in the early stages of the disorder.
Using a 1.5 Tesla magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner and fiber tracking, the optic radiations and the middle cerebellar peduncles were examined in 13 adolescents with first-admission schizophrenia and 13 healthy controls matched for age, gender, school type, and handedness.
Patients with schizophrenia displayed significantly decreased fractional anisotropy in the optic radiations, but no differences in the middle cerebellar peduncles compared to healthy controls.
Our findings of altered fiber integrity in the optic radiations in adolescents with schizophrenia are in line with gray matter alterations in the visual cortices previously reported in the same sample and are in accordance with other studies that found decreased fractional anisotropy in these regions. These findings support the view that the visual system plays an important role in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia and may enhance our understanding of associations between the visual cortex and symptoms of the disorder.
先前的研究发现,精神分裂症成年患者和青少年患者的小脑及视觉系统均存在灰质改变。本研究旨在调查与这些区域相关的白质束在该疾病早期是否也受到影响。
使用1.5特斯拉磁共振成像(MRI)扫描仪和纤维追踪技术,对13例首次入院的青少年精神分裂症患者以及13名在年龄、性别、学校类型和利手方面相匹配的健康对照者的视辐射和小脑中脚进行了检查。
与健康对照者相比,精神分裂症患者视辐射的各向异性分数显著降低,但小脑中脚无差异。
我们关于精神分裂症青少年视辐射纤维完整性改变的研究结果与先前在同一样本中报道的视觉皮层灰质改变一致,并且与其他发现这些区域各向异性分数降低的研究相符。这些发现支持了视觉系统在精神分裂症发病机制中起重要作用的观点,并可能增进我们对视觉皮层与该疾病症状之间关联的理解。