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Meta-analysis of structural and functional brain abnormalities in schizophrenia with persistent negative symptoms
Tingting Zhu1, Zixu Wang1, Chao Zhou1
1Department of Geriatric Psychiatry, The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China.
Frontiers in Psychiatry
|October 14, 2022
Summary
Persistent negative symptoms (PNS) in schizophrenia show consistent structural brain abnormalities in prefrontal and temporal regions. Functional imaging reveals alterations in thalamo-cortical circuits and the default mode network (DMN).
Area of Science:
- Neuroimaging
- Psychiatry
- Radiology
Background:
- Persistent negative symptoms (PNS) in schizophrenia represent a significant unmet therapeutic need.
- Previous magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies on structural and functional brain abnormalities in PNS have yielded inconsistent results.
- This meta-analysis aimed to identify consistent structural and functional brain abnormalities in patients with PNS compared to healthy controls.
Approach:
- Systematic literature search of PubMed, Web of Science, and Embase for MRI studies.
- Included studies utilized voxel-based morphometry (VBM), diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), functional connectivity (FC), amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF/fALFF), and regional homogeneity (ReHo).
- A coordinate-based meta-analysis was performed using the activation likelihood estimation (ALE) algorithm.
Key Points:
- Analysis included 25 structural and 32 functional MRI studies.
- Identified structural alterations in bilateral insula, medial frontal gyrus, anterior cingulate gyrus, left amygdala, superior temporal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, cingulate gyrus, and middle temporal gyrus.
- Revealed functional differences in bilateral precuneus, thalamus, left lentiform nucleus, posterior cingulate gyrus, medial frontal gyrus, and superior frontal gyrus.
Conclusions:
- Structural brain abnormalities in PNS are consistently found in prefrontal, temporal, limbic, and subcortical regions.
- Functional alterations are concentrated in thalamo-cortical circuits and the default mode network (DMN).
- Findings offer insights for targeted interventions to manage negative symptoms in schizophrenia.
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