Volumetric abnormalities in the subcortical structures have been described in schizophrenia. However, it still has to be clarified if subtle microstructural damage is also present. Thus, we aimed to detect subcortical volume and mean diffusivity (MD) alterations in 45 patients with diagnosis of schizophrenia compared with 45 age-, gender-, and educational attainment-matched healthy comparison (...

ackground: Schizophrenia is a heterogeneous disorder characterized by diffuse brain abnormalities that affect many facets of ognitive function. One replicated finding in schizophrenia is abnormalities in the neural systems associated with processing salient timuli in the context of oddball tasks. This deficit in the processing of salience stimuli might be related to abnormalities in orienting, ...

Schizophrenia is a devastating psychiatric illness that afflicts 1% of the population worldwide, resulting in substantial impact to patients, their families, and health care delivery systems. For many years, schizophrenia has been felt to be associated with dysregulated dopaminergic neurotransmission as a key feature of the pathophysiology of the illness. Although numerous studies point to dopa...

Both post-mortem and neuroimaging studies have contributed significantly to what we know about the brain and schizophrenia. MRI studies of volumetric reduction in several brain regions in schizophrenia have confirmed early speculations that the brain is disordered in schizophrenia. There is also a growing body of evidence suggesting that a disturbance in connectivity between different brain reg...

It is known that there exist specific neurodevelopmental abnormalities in the medial temporal lobe in schizophrenia. For example, pre-a cells in the parahippocampal gyrus show aberrant migration patterns. It is possible that glutamate abnormalities previously shown in schizophrenia are related to neurodevelopment, and the abnormalities seen in dystrophic cells (glutamate receptors have trophic ...

Schizophrenia is a complex mental disorder that displays behavioral deficits such as decreased sensory gating, reduced social interaction and working memory deficits. The neurodevelopmental model is one of the widely accepted hypotheses of the etiology of schizophrenia. Subtle developmental abnormalities of the brain which stated long before the onset of clinical symptoms are thought to lead to...

Schizophrenia is a common, severe, and chronically disabling mental illness of unknown cause. Recent MRI studies have focused attention on white matter abnormalities in schizophrenia using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Indices commonly derived from DTI include (1) mean diffusivity, independent of direction, (2) fractional anisotropy (FA) or relative anisotropy (RA), (3) axial diffusivity, and...

BACKGROUND Previous reports indicate that brain structural abnormalities may be progressive in some patients with schizophrenia. Our study was designed to determine deviations in the shape of midline brain structures at the time of onset of symptoms of schizophrenia and 3-5 years later. METHODS Eleven landmarks were located on the midsagittal magnetic resonance imagery brain scans of 55 patie...

OBJECTIVE To determine structural abnormalities in the brain of patients with schizophrenia by Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). STUDY DESIGN Comparative study. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY The Departments of Radiology and Psychiatry, the Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, from January 2007 to June 2008. METHODOLOGY Thirty-three cases of schizophrenia (n=33) and thirty-three age-matche...