Comparing Fractional Anisotropy in Patients with Childhood-onset Schizophrenia, Their Healthy Siblings, and Normal Volunteers Through DTI

Overview

Journal Schizophr Bull

Publisher Oxford University Press

Specialty Psychiatry

Date 2014 Sep 14

PMID 25217482

Citations 10

Authors

Marcel E Moran

Zoe I Luscher

Harrison McAdams

John T Hsu

Deanna Greenstein

Liv Clasen

Katharine Ludovici

Jonae Lloyd

Judith Rapoport

Susumu Mori

Nitin Gogtay

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: Diffusion tensor imaging is a neuroimaging method that quantifies white matter (WM) integrity and brain connectivity based on the diffusion of water in the brain. White matter has been hypothesized to be of great importance in the development of schizophrenia as part of the dysconnectivity model. Childhood-onset schizophrenia (COS), is a rare, severe form of the illness that resembles poor outcome adult-onset schizophrenia. We hypothesized that COS would be associated with WM abnormalities relative to a sample of controls.

Methods: To evaluate WM integrity in this population 39 patients diagnosed with COS, 39 of their healthy (nonpsychotic) siblings, and 50 unrelated healthy volunteers were scanned using a diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) sequence during a 1.5 T MRI acquisition. Each DTI scan was processed via atlas-based analysis using a WM parcellation map, and diffeomorphic mapping that shapes a template atlas to each individual subject space. Fractional anisotropy (FA), a measure of WM integrity was averaged over each of the 46 regions of the atlas. Eleven WM regions were examined based on previous reports of WM growth abnormalities in COS.

Results: Of those regions, patients with COS, and their healthy siblings had significantly lower mean FA in the left and right cuneus as compared to the healthy volunteers (P < .005). Together, these findings represent the largest DTI study in COS to date, and provide evidence that WM integrity is significantly impaired in COS. Shared deficits in their healthy siblings might result from increased genetic risk.

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