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[Aspects of cerebral connnectivity in schizophrenia. A comparative CBF study on treated schizophrenics before and
Introduction:
The hypothesis of prefrontal-temporolimbic disconnectivity, considered to be relevant to the pathogenesis of schizophrenia, has been tested in 29 drug-naive schizophrenic patients, comparing the active with the remitted state.
Method:
A pre-post-treatment design was applied to 29 drug-naive schizophrenic inpatients, 18 male, mean age 32 years, 11 female, mean age 32 years, mean duration of illness 29 months. Psychopathological symptoms were assessed using PANSS, regional cerebral blood (rCBF) was measured by HMPAO-SPECT. RCBF values were calculated for 21 regions of interest after normalization to cerebellum, and plotted by Euklidean diagrams using the ordinal, nonmetric, multidimensional scaling method. These diagrams represent similarity correlations visualized as spatial distances. High correlation levels as indicated by small Euklidean distances have been interpreted as functional connectivity.
Results:
In active schizophrenia, functional disconnectivity was observed between prefrontal and temporal cortex. After remission, connectivity was improved between temporolimbic and frontal cortex.
Conclusion:
Comparing active with remitted schizophrenia, a frontotemporal disconnectivity appears. Temporolimbic as well as frontolimbic connections restitute parallel to psychopathological improvement.