Comparisons On Grey Matter Concentration And White Matter Integrity Of The Brain In First-episode, Antipsychotic-naive Schizophrenics

PART ONE: OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study is toinvestigate the characteristics of grey matter concentration in first episode,antipsychotic-naive schizophrenia (FANS). METHODS: 25 first episodeFANS and 22 healthy controls were recruited, whose sex and age werematched groupwise. All subjects were scanned using three-dimensionalspoiled gradient-echo sequence on a 1.5-T General Electric scanner.The clinical symptoms of patients were measured by using Positive andNegative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). An SPM2-based implementation ofVBM that included normalization, segment, smoothing.The groupdifference was measured by a two-samplet test. RESULTS: FANSshowed decreased on grey matter concentration in bilateral superiortemporal gyms,left superior and middle frontal,right inferior frontal, leftinferior parietal lobule, left cerebellum. CONCLUSIONS: 1)Thereduction of regional grey matter in the frontal lobe of the first-episodeschizophrenia suggested the mechanisms of neurodevelopmentalabnormality.2) The present findings may provide evidence of brainabnormalities in grey matter concentration to understand the first onset ofschizophrenia.PART TWO: OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study is to studythe white matter integrity in FANS. METHODS: Diffusion tensorimaging was employed to examine the white matter integrity in first-episode schizophrenia patients and the matched normal controls.The fractional anisotropy (FA) of 25 schizophrenic patients and 22control subjects was compared. RESULT: Compared with controls, FAshowed significantly (P＜0.001) decrease in some brain regions ofschizophrenics includeing the frontal lobe (bilateral frontal gyrus superior,bilateral middle frontal gyrus, right medial frontal), the temporal lobe(bilateral middle temporal, right medial temporal), the parietal lobe(bilateral inferior parietal lobule,right postcentral gyrus),occipital(leftmiddle occipital and lingual gyrus),left cerebellum (anterior lobe).CONCLUTION: To our knowledge, this is the first study on the whitematter integrity of the brain in FANS. The results indicates schizophreniathat as a complicated brain disease shows the impairment of brainconnectivity.Its change is no matter with neuroleptic.