Gray matter volume differences in deficit and nondeficit schizophrenia:a voxel-based morphometric study / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To examine the differences in the structure of brain white matter among deficit schizophrenia, nondeficit schizophrenia and healthy controls by using voxel-based morphometry (VBM). Methods Ten deficit schizophrenic patients, eleven nondeficit patients and fifteen healthy comparison subjects participated in the study. All the subjects were scanned by GE Twin Speed 1.5T MRI system. Whole brain, voxel-wise analyses of regional white matter volume were conducted by the VBM toolbox on the Matlab7.6 and SPM5. t -test was then used for the comparison between groups. Results Compared to the healthy controls, nondeficit schizophrenic patients significantly decreased the density of gray matter in the frontal, parietal, temporal, occipital lobe and basal ganglia , while the deficit patients showed the characteristically broad and significant decreasion in the frontal lobe, including left medial frontal gyrus, bilateral inferior frontal gyrus, left middle frontal gyrus, and left orbital gyrus (Cluster ≥ 30 mm3, P<0.01). Moreover, deficit patients showed the decreasion in the temporal cortex and the limbic lobe (right insula). Relative to the nondeficit schizophrenic patients, deficit patients had significant regional gray matter decreases in the left medial frontal gyrus, bilateral inferior frontal gyrus, right precentral gyrus, and right superior temporal gyrus (Cluster ≥ 30 mm3, P<0.01). Conclusion Structural heterogeneity in schizophrenia may relate to specific patterns of gray matter density reductions in deficit and nondeficit patient. However the two subtype of schizophremia patients share a common prefrontal-temperal pattern of structural brain alterations.