Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
Structural and Diffusion Tensor Imaging of the Fornix in Childhood- and Adolescent-Onset Schizophrenia
Section snippets
Subjects
The participants included 15 patients (seven males and eight females) with a diagnosis of schizophrenia (n = 14) and schizoaffective disorder (n = 1). The control group consisted of 15 healthy volunteers (eight males and seven females). Each participant, including the healthy volunteers, underwent a diagnostic evaluation using the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children—Present and Lifetime Version.29 Additional clinical measures included the Scale for the
Demographics
There were no statistical differences in either age or sex between the two groups (Table 1). As would be expected, the children and adolescents with schizophrenia had a significantly lower IQ (t = 2.93, df = 26, p < .01). Two subjects (one patient and one control) did not return for a subsequent session, which included IQ testing, and so no IQ information was available on these two subjects. There was a significant difference in socioeconomic status (SES) between the two groups (t = 3.09, df =
Discussion
We found a decrease in the volume of the fornix without a decrease in FA in children and adolescents with schizophrenia. The volume decrease may represent a decrease in the number of white matter fibers connecting the hippocampus to anterior limbic and frontal regions. No differences between the patients and controls in FA implies that the white matter microstructure of the fornix is relatively intact. The latter finding is in contrast to a recent study in adult males with schizophrenia that
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Cited by (34)
Tractography in the clinics: Implementing a pipeline to characterize early brain development
2017, NeuroImage: ClinicalWhite matter correlates of episodic memory encoding and retrieval in schizophrenia
2016, Psychiatry Research - NeuroimagingWhite Matter Microstructure in Early-Onset Schizophrenia: A Systematic Review of Diffusion Tensor Imaging Studies
2016, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent PsychiatryCitation Excerpt :A total of 21 DTI research articles on children and adolescents with EOS met the inclusion criteria for this systematic review (see Method). Key details of the samples and methods as well as the main results for the studies are summarized in Table 1.53-70 Based on the available information, the mean age of the patient samples ranged from 14 to 19 years.
Comparative neuropsychiatry: White matter abnormalities in children and adolescents with schizophrenia, bipolar affective disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder
2015, European PsychiatryCitation Excerpt :Studies in EOS populations have also found WM abnormalities using tractography of the ILF [10]. In addition to the SLF and ILF, we also found that patients with EOS have regional abnormalities in the corpus callosum, fornix, and bilateral thalamic radiation tracts that are WM tracts show abnormalities in other DTI studies of schizophrenia [32,35,77]. Finally, a meta-analysis of WM development during typically developing adolescents shows that regions with the highest age-related FA during this period of development included the left SLF, ILF, inferior front-occipital fasciculus, and the anterior thalamic radiation [50].
Diffusion tensor imaging study of the fornix in first episode schizophrenia and in healthy controls
2014, Schizophrenia ResearchCitation Excerpt :With respect to postmortem studies of schizophrenia, the fornix has been investigated in only two studies (Chance et al., 1999; Davies et al., 2001), both of which report an increase in fiber density in the left fornix in male subjects and an increase in the cross-sectional area of the fornix in early onset of schizophrenia. Also DTI studies in chronic schizophrenia suggest abnormalities in white matter integrity of the fornix (e.g., Kuroki et al., 2006; Abdul-Rahman et al., 2011), while DTI studies in FE schizophrenia are less consistent, with one study reporting no abnormalities (Kendi et al., 2008), while other studies (e.g., Davenport et al., 2010; Luck et al., 2010) report differences in FA. The purpose of the current study is to investigate whether or not white matter abnormalities within the fornix are present at illness onset.
Gray Matter Alterations in Schizophrenia High-Risk Youth and Early-Onset Schizophrenia. A Review of Structural MRI Findings.
2013, Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North AmericaCitation Excerpt :Other commonly reported structural findings in EOS and COS include smaller whole-brain volume,113,126,130,132,133 greater lateral ventricular volume,130,134–136 and smaller GM in the cerebellum137–139 and thalamus.115,130,140 Fewer, and less consistent, structural alterations are reported regarding the amygdala,127,141 parahippocampus,119 insula,116 fusiform gyrus,116 basal ganglia,130 fornix,142,143 corpus callosum,144,145 and cavum septum pellucidum.146 In 2 studies,147,148 no structural brain abnormalities in any brain areas in EOS versus controls were found.
This work was funded by NIMH MH068540, the Essel Foundation support of a NARSAD Young Investigator Award, and the Mental Illness and Neuroscience Discovery (MIND) Institute. The authors acknowledge MRI infrastructure grants: P30NS057091 and P41 RR00807. Finally, they thank the anonymous peer reviewers for their helpful suggestions.