Objective · To observe the changes of cerebral gray matter pre- and post-treatment with short term drugs in patients with schizophrenia. Methods · T1-weighted brain MRIs were obtained on a 3T scanner in 21 controls and 27 subjects with schizophrenia who were not given antipsychotic medication. The controls and 21 schizophrenia patients received the second scan after 8 weeks of antipsychotic treatment. Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) were used to investigate the differences in gray matter (GM), mainly about the regional GM volumes. Results · GM volumes were significantly smaller in the patient group than those of healthy controls in left cerebellum posterior lobe , left and right parahippocampalgyrus, left middle temporal gyrus(P=0.000, voxels>50). GM volumes extensively decreased after 8 weeks of antipsychotic-treatment compared with pre-treatment in the superior, middle, and inferior temporal gyri, superior,middle and inferior frontal gyri, parahippocampa gyri, cingulate gyri, right supramarginal gyrus, right cerebellum posterior lobe, and right lingual gyrus(P=0.000, voxels>50). Conclusion · Short term antipsychotic treatment (8 weeks) may have adverse effects on the gray matter of patients with acute schizophrenia by reducing the volume of gray matter.

Objective To explore the feature of functional connectivity of default mode network (DMN) and salience network (SN) in unmedicated schizophrenia patients during a resting state by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fM-RI). Methods The SPM8 and DPARSFA softwares combined with independent component analysis (ICA) were used to in-vestigate functional connectivity (FC) of the DMN and SN in 27 unmedicated patients with schizophrenia and 27 age-and gender-matched healthy controls. Results Concerning the DMN, patients with schizophrenia showed decreased FC in right inferior frontal gyrus , right precuneus(unadjusted P<0.05)and increased FC in right middle cingulate gyrus, left middle frontal gyrus(unadjusted P<0.05). With regard to the SN, patients showed reduced connectivity in left inferior frontal gyrus, right inferior frontal gyrus, left anterior cingulate, left postcentral gyrus(unadjusted P<0.05)and increased connectivity in left superior temporal gyrus(unadjusted P<0.05). Correlation analyses showed that the increased FC of left superior temporal gyrus significantly correlated with PANSS-positive symptoms(r=0.568,P=0.002)and decreased FC of right precuneus significantly negatively correlated with delusion symptom(r=-0.458,P=0.016). Conclusion This study provides evidence for resting state functional abnormalities of DMN and SN in unmedicated schizophrenia patients. These aberrant function connectivities in some brain regions of the two networks could be a source of abnormal introspectively-oriented mental actives.

Objective: Abnormalities of static brain activity have been reported in schizophrenia, but it remains to be clarified the temporal variability of intrinsic brain activities in schizophrenia and how atypical antipsychotics affect it. Methods: We employed a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) and a sliding-window analysis of dynamic amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (dALFF) to evaluate the dynamic brain activities in schizophrenia (SZ) patients before and after 8-week antipsychotic treatment. Twenty-six schizophrenia individuals and 26 matched healthy controls (HC) were included in this study. Results: Compared with HC, SZ showed stronger dALFF in the right inferior temporal gyrus (ITG.R) at baseline. After medication, the SZ group exhibited reduced dALFF in the right middle occipital gyrus (MOG.R) and increased dALFF in the left superior frontal gyrus (SFG.L), right middle frontal gyrus (MFG.R), and right inferior parietal lobule (IPL.R). Dynamic ALFF in IPL.R was found to significant negative correlate with the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS) scores at baseline. Conclusion Our results showed dynamic intrinsic brain activities altered in schizophrenia after short term antipsychotic treatment. The findings of this study support and expand the application of dALFF method in the study of the pathological mechanism in psychosis in the future.