Psychiatry Neuroimaging Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Curr Opin Psychiatry. 2013 Mar;26(2):172-87. doi: 10.1097/YCO.0b013e32835d9e6a.
We review diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) studies that investigate white matter abnormalities in patients with chronic schizophrenia, first episode schizophrenia, and those who are at genetic risk for developing schizophrenia. Additionally, we include studies that combine DTI and functional MRI (fMRI) to investigate brain connectivity abnormalities.
Schizophrenia is a complex mental disorder with a peak age of onset in early adulthood. Abnormalities in white matter tracts, which connect brain regions into functional networks, are most likely relevant for understanding structural and functional brain abnormalities in schizophrenia. Dysconnectivity between brain regions, in fact, is thought to underlie cognitive abnormalities in schizophrenia but little is known about how alterations at the functional level relate to abnormalities in anatomical connectivity. DTI has become one of the most popular tools in brain research to address such questions. Here we review white matter abnormalities using DTI with the aim of understanding dysconnectivity of brain regions and their implications in schizophrenia.
Advances in DTI and in combining DTI with fMRI provide new insight into anatomical and functional connections in the brain, and for studying dysconnectivity in schizophrenia.
我们综述了扩散张量成像（DTI）研究，这些研究调查了慢性精神分裂症、首发精神分裂症患者以及有发展为精神分裂症遗传风险的患者的白质异常。此外，我们还包括了将 DTI 和功能磁共振成像（fMRI）相结合的研究，以调查脑连接异常。
精神分裂症是一种复杂的精神障碍，发病高峰期在成年早期。连接大脑区域形成功能网络的白质束的异常很可能与理解精神分裂症中的结构和功能脑异常有关。事实上，脑区之间的连接中断被认为是精神分裂症认知异常的基础，但对于功能水平的改变如何与解剖连接的异常相关知之甚少。DTI 已成为大脑研究中最流行的工具之一，用于解决这些问题。在这里，我们使用 DTI 综述白质异常，旨在了解脑区的连接中断及其在精神分裂症中的意义。
DTI 的进步以及将 DTI 与 fMRI 相结合，为大脑的解剖和功能连接提供了新的见解，并为研究精神分裂症中的连接中断提供了新的见解。
