Age-related cortical thinning in schizophrenia

Abstract

Although the effects of aging on the neural correlates of schizophrenia have been researched for many years, no clear conclusion has been reached. While some studies have demonstrated progressive age-related gray matter reductions in schizophrenia, other studies have not found evidence of progression. Moreover, it remains unclear whether the influence of aging on global or regional cortical thickness differs between schizophrenia patients and healthy controls. This study aimed to confirm previous reports of reduced cortical thickness in schizophrenia, and to investigate the effects of age on global and regional cortical thickness. Eighty-three patients with schizophrenia (six first-episode patients and 77 chronic patients; age range=18-55 years) and 90 age-, gender- and education-matched healthy controls (age range=19-56 years) underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) using a 3-Tesla scanner. Surface-based analysis was applied to assess cortical thickness in the whole brain. The patient group exhibited both global and regional cortical thinning in regions including the prefrontal and temporal cortices. The correlation between age and cortical thickness showed a similar pattern in patients and controls, both globally and regionally. These results suggest that the reduction of cortical thickness in schizophrenia might not be progressive over the course of the illness, indicating that pathological processes occur in a relatively limited period of time around the onset of illness.

Comparison of grey matter volume and thickness for analysing cortical changes in chronic schizophrenia: A matter of surface area, grey/white matter intensity contrast, and curvature

“…It represents a methodological alternative to volume measurements for the investigation of subtle cortical changes in the human brain (Dale et al, 1999;Fischl et al, 1999a). Prior studies examining cortical thickness in schizophrenia identified a broad pattern of reduced cortical thickness in the prefrontal regions, temporal regions, superior parietal gyrus, hippocampus and cingulate gyrus (Narr et al, 2005;Schultz et al, 2010b;Kubota et al, 2011;van Haren et al, 2011).…”

Grey-matter texture abnormalities and reduced hippocampal volume are distinguishing features of schizophrenia

“…In patients with schizophrenia, when compared with healthy controls, prefrontal and temporal cortices show reductions in cortical thickness and surface area, with relative sparing of more posterior regions (Kuperberg et al, 2003;Rimol et al, 2010;Nesvag et al, 2011;Kubota et al, 2011). Cortical surface parameters, like volumetric measures, vary with age and medication history (Wiegand et al, 2004;Nesvag et al, 2011;Kubota et al, 2011). Nevertheless, studies indicate that cortical surface parameters are linked to neurodevelopmental processes that undergo only partial reshaping across the lifespan (Wienberger and McClure, 2002;Mangin et al, 2010).…”

Multimodal neuroimaging as a window into the pathological physiology of schizophrenia: Current trends and issues

“…(C) Scatter plots and regression slopes of regional mean cortical thickness with age in each ROI. The age regression slope within all ROIs did not significantly differ between groups (P value range = 0.215-0.960) (Kubota et al, 2011). across the course of the illness. Regarding this, current studies on first episode schizophrenia and at risk mental state (ARMS) subjects indicate that gray matter changes mainly occur in the period around illness onset (Borgwardt et al, 2007;Andreasen et al, 2011).…”

“…Consequently, cross-sectional studies mainly deal with this concept. Thus, here we introduce our investigation on age effects on global and regional cortical thickness, using a crosssectional study design that accounts for subject age and disease duration (Kubota et al, 2011).…”

“…To test this, we identified eleven young schizophrenia participants (mean age = 24.9 years) with short illness durations (under 2 years), and age-and gender-matched healthy controls, from the sample of Kubota et al (2011), and performed additional analysis on the effect of age and illness duration on cortical thickness. We did not find any correlation between cortical thickness and age or illness duration in patients or controls at this age-range.…”