Longitudinal reduction in brain volume in patients with schizophrenia and its association with cognitive function

作者：Ryuichi Yamazaki, Junya Matsumoto, Satsuki Ito, Kiyotaka Nemoto, Masaki Fukunaga, Naoki Hashimoto, Fumitoshi Kodaka, Harumasa Takano, Naomi Hasegawa, Yuka Yasuda, Michiko Fujimoto, Hidenaga Yamamori, Yoshiyuki Watanabe, Kenichiro Miura, Ryota Hashimoto · 发表于：Neuropsychopharmacology Reports · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.1002/npr2.12423 · 被引用次数：7 · 研究领域：Schizophrenia research and treatment、Advanced Neuroimaging Techniques and Applications、Functional Brain Connectivity Studies

Establishing a brain biomarker for schizophrenia is strongly desirable not only to support diagnosis by psychiatrists but also to help track the progressive changes in the brain over the course of the illness. A brain morphological signature of schizophrenia was reported in a recent study and is defined by clusters of brain regions with reduced volume in schizophrenia patients compared to healthy individuals. This signature was proven to be effective at differentiating patients with schizophrenia from healthy individuals, suggesting that it is a good candidate brain biomarker of schizophrenia. However, the longitudinal characteristics of this signature have remained unclear. In this study, we examined whether these changes occurred over time and whether they were associated with clinical outcomes. We found a significant change in the brain morphological signature in schizophrenia patients with more brain volume loss than the natural, age-related reduction in healthy individuals, suggesting that this change can capture a progressive morphological change in the brain. We further found a significant association between changes in the brain morphological signature and changes in the full-scale intelligence quotient (IQ). The patients with IQ improvement showed preserved brain morphological signatures, whereas the patients without IQ improvement showed progressive changes in the brain morphological signature, suggesting a link between potential recovery of intellectual abilities a...