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Published on: December 2, 2015
Smaller amygdala subnuclei volume in schizophrenia patients with violent behaviors
Hao Hu1, Fengju Liu1, Li Liu1
1Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, 200030, China.
Abstract:
To investigate the association between the volume of amygdala subnuclei and violent behaviors in patients with schizophrenia (SCZ). In the present study, we recruited 40 SCZ patients with violent behaviors (VS), 26 SCZ patients without violent behaviors (NVS), and 28 matched healthy controls (HC) who completed T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging. Both the total amygdala and amygdala subnuclei volumes were estimated with FreeSurfer. When comparing the SCZ patients with HC, SCZ patients had a smaller volume of the left basal nucleus (P < 0.05, uncorrected). Further, the VS patients had a smaller volume of the left amygdala central nucleus than the NVS group (P < 0.05, Bonferroni corrected). Our study suggests that a smaller volume of the left amygdala basal nucleus may be a biomarker for SCZ and that a smaller volume of the left central nucleus may be relevant to violence risk in patients with schizophrenia.
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