Buchsbaum M S, Someya T, Teng C Y, Abel L, Chin S, Najafi A, Haier R J, Wu J, Bunney W E
Neuroscience PET Center, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY 10029-6574, USA.
Am J Psychiatry. 1996 Feb;153(2):191-9. doi: 10.1176/ajp.153.2.191.
This study reports the first paired measurements of glucose metabolism and size of thalamic regions in never-medicated schizophrenic patients using coregistered magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) templates.
Positron emission tomography with [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose and matching MRI scans were obtained in 20 never-medicated patients with schizophrenia and 15 normal volunteers. Methods for thalamic edge finding, statistical testing of shape differences with chi-square maps, and MRI localization of major thalamic subregions were developed.
Patients with schizophrenia showed a diminished metabolic rate in the right thalamus, with a loss of the normal pattern of right greater than left asymmetry. Division into anterior/posterior segments revealed that the left anterior and right posterior showed the decrease. Differences were greater for metabolism in the weighted thalamic area (ratexarea) than for rate per unit area, a finding consistent with reported greater decreases in total neuron number than of neuron density in the thalami of schizophrenic patients. The area of the thalamus was smaller in the patients than in the volunteers, and this difference was greatest in the left anterior region.
The reduced thalamic activity observed in this study lends further support to the concept of deficits in sensory filtering in schizophrenia.
本研究报告了使用配准磁共振成像（MRI）模板对未用药的精神分裂症患者丘脑区域的葡萄糖代谢和大小进行的首次配对测量。
对20名未用药的精神分裂症患者和15名正常志愿者进行了[18F]氟脱氧葡萄糖正电子发射断层扫描及匹配的MRI扫描。开发了丘脑边缘检测方法、用卡方图对形状差异进行统计检验以及主要丘脑亚区域的MRI定位方法。
精神分裂症患者右侧丘脑代谢率降低，失去了正常的右侧大于左侧不对称模式。分为前/后段显示，左侧前部和右侧后部出现降低。加权丘脑区域（ratexarea）的代谢差异大于单位面积代谢率差异，这一发现与报道的精神分裂症患者丘脑中总神经元数量的减少大于神经元密度的减少一致。患者的丘脑面积小于志愿者，且这种差异在左侧前部区域最大。
本研究中观察到的丘脑活动减少进一步支持了精神分裂症感觉过滤缺陷的概念。
