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Updated: Apr 20, 2026
Diffusion Tensor Magnetic Resonance Imaging in the Analysis of Neurodegenerative Diseases
Published on: July 28, 2013
Application of diffusion tensor imaging for detecting structural changes in the brain of schizophrenic patients
Weijun Situ1, Haiyan Liao, Bin Zhou
1Department of Radiology, Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University , Changsha , P. R. China.
Objective:
Schizophrenia is a severe psychiatric illness. Although magnetic resonance imaging has been widely used for detecting brain structural and functional abnormalities in patients with schizophrenia, the findings are highly inconsistent between reports. This study investigates structural changes in the brains of schizophrenic patients.
Methods:
The brains of fifty male adults with schizophrenia and fifty age- and gender-matched healthy controls were scanned by diffusion tensor imaging. The differences in fractional anisotropy (FA) values between schizophrenic patients and healthy controls were analyzed.
Results:
Schizophrenic patients exhibited significantly decreased FA values in the right middle frontal gyrus, right inferior frontal gyrus, right superior temporal gyrus, left sub-temporal gyrus, left middle temporal gyrus, left cingulate gyrus, and left precentral gyrus compared with the control group. We did not find any brain regions with higher FA values in the patient group than in the control group.
Conclusion:
This study suggested that structural abnormalities in the frontal region of gray matter and white matter are present at the same time in patients with schizophrenia.
