Regional Cerebral Blood Flow at Rest in Schizophrenia and Major Depressive Disorder: A Functional Neuroimaging Meta-analysis

Severe mental disorders (SMDs) such as schizophrenia (SCZ), major depressive disorder (MDD) and bipolar disorder (BD) are associated with altered brain function. Neuroimaging studies have illustrated spontaneous activity alterations across SMDs, but no meta-analysis has directly compared resting-state regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) with one another. We conducted a meta-analysis of PET, SPECT and ASL neuroimaging studies to identify specific alterations of rCBF at rest in SMDs. Included are 20 studies in MDD, and 18 studies in SCZ. Due to the insufficient number of studies in BD, this disorder was left out of the analyses. Compared to controls, the SCZ group displayed reduced rCBF in the triangular part of the left inferior frontal gyrus and in the medial orbital part of the bilateral superior frontal gyrus. After correction, only a small cluster in the right inferior frontal gyrus exhibited reduced rCBF in MDD, compared to controls. Differences were found in these brain regions between SCZ and MDD. SCZ displayed reduced rCBF at rest in regions associated with default-mode, reward processing and language processing. MDD was associated with reduced rCBF in a cluster involved in response inhibition. Our meta-analysis highlights differences in the resting-state rCBF alterations between SCZ and MDD.