Diffusion tensor imaging study of the middle cerebellar peduncles in patients with schizophrenia

Recent evidence from neuroimaging studies suggests that neural dysfunction is involved in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is a technique that has the potential to detect subtle disruptions of neural connectivity. Fractional anisotropy (FA), which is measured by DTI, is a measure of the directionality of diffusion anisotropy. Decrease in FA indicates abnormalities of white matter due to increased water diffusion accompanied by an increase in extracellular space. In the literature, previous studies reported that patients with schizophrenia showed widespread lower FA in the white matter. These findings suggest that patients with schizophrenia have microstructural lesions in the cerebral white matter. We used DTI to determine whether neural connectivity was disturbed in the middle cerebellar peduncles in schizophrenic subjects. We found a significant FA reduction in the middle cerebellar peduncle in patients with schizophrenia. Therefore, neural disconnectivity between the cerebellum and cerebrum was considered present in patients with schizophrenia and may be involved in the pathology of schizophrenia. This review provides current findings regarding DTI study on the cerebellar peduncle in patients with schizophrenia.