Egashira Kazuteru, Matsuo Koji, Mihara Toshinari, Nakano Masayuki, Nakashima Mami, Watanuki Toshio, Matsubara Toshio, Watanabe Yoshifumi
Department of Psychiatry, University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Kitakyusyu, Japan.
Neuropsychobiology. 2014;70(3):142-51. doi: 10.1159/000364827. Epub 2014 Oct 24.
The differences in clinical characteristics between late- (LOS) and early-onset schizophrenia (EOS) are well documented. However, very little is known about the neural mechanisms underlying these differences. Here, we compared morphometric abnormalities between patients with EOS and those with LOS. A total of 22 patients with LOS, 24 patients with EOS and 41 healthy control subjects were included in this magnetic resonance imaging study. Brain images were analyzed using DARTEL preprocessing for voxel-based morphometry in SPM8. We tested a main effect of diagnosis in the whole-brain analysis and compared the results among the three groups. We also carried out correlation analyses between regional volumes and clinical variables. Patients with LOS showed larger gray matter (GM) volume of the left precuneus compared with healthy subjects and patients with EOS. Patients with LOS and EOS showed decreased GM volumes in the right insula, left superior temporal gyrus and left orbitofrontal gyrus compared with healthy subjects. A longer duration of illness was associated with reduced GM volume in the temporal pole in patients with EOS. Our findings may help improve our understanding of schizophrenia pathophysiology and shed light on the different and shared neurobiological underpinnings of LOS and EOS.
晚发性精神分裂症（LOS）和早发性精神分裂症（EOS）在临床特征上的差异已有充分记录。然而，对于这些差异背后的神经机制却知之甚少。在此，我们比较了EOS患者和LOS患者之间的形态学异常。本磁共振成像研究共纳入了22例LOS患者、24例EOS患者和41名健康对照者。使用DARTEL预处理对脑图像进行分析，以在SPM8中进行基于体素的形态测量。我们在全脑分析中测试了诊断的主要效应，并比较了三组之间的结果。我们还对区域体积与临床变量进行了相关性分析。与健康受试者和EOS患者相比，LOS患者左侧楔前叶的灰质（GM）体积更大。与健康受试者相比，LOS和EOS患者右侧岛叶、左侧颞上回和左侧眶额回的GM体积减小。EOS患者病程较长与颞极GM体积减少有关。我们的研究结果可能有助于增进我们对精神分裂症病理生理学的理解，并阐明LOS和EOS不同的和共同的神经生物学基础。
