Volume of the pineal gland in schizophrenia; an MRI study

Pineal gland abnormality has been proposed as a possible biological defect in schizophrenia. This study was designed to investigate volumetric differences of the pineal gland using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Patients with a DSM-III-R diagnosis of schizophrenia or schizophreniform disorder (n = 45) and normal controls (n = 86) were scanned using a 1.5 Tesla scanner. The volume of the pineal was obtained by blind manual tracing of the gland on T1 weighted images, using locally developed software, BRAINS. The inter-rater reliability (n = 25) yielded an intraclass r of 0.92. Comparison of the volumes by t-test showed no significant difference between patients and normal controls (p = 0.77). This study, backed by a large sample size, suggests that there are no volumetric differences between schizophrenic patients and controls in regard to the pineal gland.