Prefrontal Cortical Thickness in First-episode Psychosis: a Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Overview

Journal Biol Psychiatry

Publisher Elsevier

Specialty Psychiatry

Date 2004 Jan 21

PMID 14732592

Citations 28

Authors

Laura C Wiegand

Simon K Warfield

James J Levitt

Yoshio Hirayasu

Dean F Salisbury

Stephan Heckers

Chandlee C Dickey

Ron Kikinis

Ferenc A Jolesz

Robert W McCarley

Martha E Shenton

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: Findings from postmortem studies suggest reduced prefrontal cortical thickness in schizophrenia; however, cortical thickness in first-episode schizophrenia has not been evaluated using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Methods: Prefrontal cortical thickness was measured using MRI in first-episode schizophrenia patients (n = 17), first-episode affective psychosis patients (n = 17), and normal control subjects (n = 17); subjects were age-matched within 2 years and within a narrow age range (18-29 years). A previous study using the same subjects reported reduced prefrontal gray matter volume in first-episode schizophrenia. Manual editing was performed on those prefrontal segmentations before cortical thickness was measured.

Results: Prefrontal cortical thickness was not significantly different among groups. Prefrontal gray matter volume and thickness were, however, positively correlated in both schizophrenia and control subjects. The product of boundary complexity and thickness, an alternative measure of volume, was positively correlated with volume for all three groups. Finally, age and age at first medication were negatively correlated with prefrontal cortical thickness only in first-episode schizophrenia.

Conclusions: This study demonstrates the potential usefulness of MRI for the study of cortical thickness abnormalities in schizophrenia. Correlations between cortical thickness and age and between cortical thickness and age at first medication suggest that the longer the schizophrenic process has been operative, the thinner the prefrontal cortex, although this needs confirmation in a longitudinal study.

Citing Articles

Cortical and Subcortical Structural Morphometric Profiles in Individuals with Nonaffective and Affective Early Illness Psychosis.

Hua J, Mathalon D Schizophr Bull Open. 2024; 3(1):sgac028.

PMID: 39144757 PMC: 11206002. DOI: 10.1093/schizbullopen/sgac028.

A 10-Year Longitudinal Study of Brain Cortical Thickness in People with First-Episode Psychosis Using Normative Models.

Berthet P, Haatveit B, Kjelkenes R, Worker A, Kia S, Wolfers T Schizophr Bull. 2024; 51(1):95-107.

PMID: 38970378 PMC: 11661960. DOI: 10.1093/schbul/sbae107.

Magnetic resonance texture analysis reveals stagewise nonlinear alterations of the frontal gray matter in patients with early psychosis.

Moon S, Park H, Lee W, Lee S, Lho S, Kim M Mol Psychiatry. 2023; 28(12):5309-5318.

PMID: 37500824 DOI: 10.1038/s41380-023-02163-3.

Analysis of cortical morphometric variability using labeled cortical distance maps.

Ceyhan E, Nishino T, Botteron K, Miller M, Ratnanather J Stat Interface. 2023; 10(2):313-341.

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Structural Associations of Cortical Contrast and Thickness in First Episode Psychosis.

Makowski C, Lewis J, Lepage C, Malla A, Joober R, Lepage M Cereb Cortex. 2019; 29(12):5009-5021.

PMID: 30844050 PMC: 6918925. DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhz040.

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