Progressive brain abnormalities in schizophrenia across different illness periods: a structural and functional MRI...

Area of Science:

• Neuroimaging
• Psychiatry
• Brain Imaging

Background:

• Schizophrenia is a chronic brain disorder with known neuroimaging abnormalities.
• The precise timing and progression of these brain abnormalities throughout the illness course remain unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the progression of structural and functional brain abnormalities in schizophrenia over different illness durations.
• To determine when and how these abnormalities evolve using multimodal neuroimaging techniques.

Main Methods:

• Recruited 115 schizophrenia patients stratified into 5, 15, and 25-year illness duration groups.
• Used resting-state MRI with voxel-based morphometry (VBM), fractional anisotropy (FA), global functional connectivity density (gFCD), and sample entropy (SampEn) analyses.
• Compared patient groups with age- and sex-matched healthy controls.

Main Results:

• Early illness (≤5 years): Sample entropy abnormalities in the putamen.
• Mid-illness (12-18 years): VBM abnormalities in the insula/cingulate gyrus and gFCD in the temporal cortex.
• Late illness (≥25 years): Widespread FA abnormalities in white matter tracts, plus VBM and gFCD in frontal cortex/cerebellum.

Conclusions:

• Functional abnormalities initially appear in limited brain regions.
• Gray matter density and functional connectivity deficits emerge later, affecting broader brain areas.
• Structural white matter abnormalities involving most tracts develop in the third decade of schizophrenia.