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Partial volume decrease of the thalamus in relatives of patients with schizophrenia
W G Staal1, H E Hulshoff Pol, H Schnack
1Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Objective:
The authors' goal was to compare the thalamic, total brain, and intracranial volumes of patients with schizophrenia, their healthy siblings, and normal comparison subjects.
Method:
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scans were obtained for 32 same-sex siblings who were discordant for schizophrenia and 32 matched normal comparison subjects.
Results:
Mean total thalamic volume, corrected for total brain volume, was significantly different among affected siblings, unaffected siblings, and comparison subjects. Thalamic volume was smallest in the patients; thalamic volume in their siblings was smaller than that of comparison subjects but larger than that of the patients with schizophrenia.
Conclusions:
These results suggest that healthy siblings of patients with schizophrenia partially share the thalamic abnormalities of their affected relatives.