Chinese Journal of Psychiatry 2012;45(4):196-200

doi:10.3760/cma.j.issn.1006-7884.2012.04.003

Diffusion tensor imaging study of white matter in schizophrenic patients and their healthy siblings

Keywords

Schizophrenic patients; Healthy siblings; White matter; Fractional anisotropy

Country

China

Language

Chinese

Abstract

Objective The objective is to determine whether brain regional pattern of neural disconnectivity is shared by schizophrenic patients and their healthy siblings or only presented in schizophrenic patients.Methods To investigated brain white matter (WM) abnormalities by voxel-based analysis of WM fractional anisotropy (FA) data acquired from diffusion tenor imaging in 34 pairs of schizophrenic patients and their heaithy siblings and 32 healthy controls.Results Both schizophrenic patients and their healthy siblings showed reduced WM FA in the left prefrontal cortex (PFC) ( patients:0.303±0.006 ; siblings:0.320±0.006 ) and hippocampus ( patients:0.310±0.005 ; siblings:0.318±0.006) as compared with healthy controls (PFC:0.338±0.007; hippocampus:0.338±0.005) (P<0.05),without significant difference between patients and siblings (P>0.05).In marked contrast,only schizophrenic patients exhibited reduced WM FA (0.391±0.006) in the left anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) as compared with either siblings (0.423±0.006) (P<0.05) or controls (0.412±0.007) (P<0.05),without significant difference between siblings and controls (P>0.05).Conclusions Schizophrenic patients and their healthy siblings show similar abnormalities of brain WM integrity.Schizophrenic patients and their healthy siblings share neural disconnectivity in the left PFC and hippocampus that may relate to the higher risk of healthy siblings to develop schizophrenia,which may be eventually attributed to additional neural disconnectivity in the left ACC.