Selective enlargement of the third ventricle found in chronic schizophrenia.

Selective enlargement of the third ventricle was observed when the area and the VBR (ventricle-brain ratio) were measured in 37 chronic schizophrenics (DSM-III criteria) as compared with 37 controls. However, the width or the width to IS (maximum inner skull width) ratio was not significantly different between the two groups. There was no correlation between any measure of the third ventricle and any of the clinical variables. Five patients had VBRs of the third ventricle that were larger than the mean + 2 SD of the control, but there was no significant difference between these five schizophrenics and the others in any of the clinical variables.