Low birth weight and ventricular enlargement in a high-risk sample.

The Copenhagen High-risk Project, 1962-86

“…Our analyses revealed that in infancy the schizophrenics and SPDs were significantly more passive, and evidenced shorter attention spans than high-risk controls but did not differ significantly from each other. In adolescence, schizophrenics and SPDs evidenced comparable and significantly higher levels of formal thought disorder and defective emotional rapport than HR controls (Parnas et al 1982 a ; Silverton et al 1985).…”

“…The correlation of birth weight and VBR was highly significant ( p = −.60, df = 26, p = .001). Among the 14 subjects with birth weights at or below the median, all but two had VBRs above the median (χ 2 = 12.69, df = 1, p < .001; Silverton et al 1985).…”

Congenital risk factors for schizophrenia

“…The seven schizophrenic members of this sample had the largest ventricles, significantly higher than those in the 11 schizotypal non-psychotic members. Although total obstetric complication score did not correlate with ventricular size, low birthweight did (Silverton et al 1985). A history of obstetric complications has elsewhere been shown to correlate positively with lateral ventricular size (Turner et al 1986), frontal horn area (DeLisi et al 1986) and a combination of ventricular and sulcal widening (Owen et al 1988).…”

Obstetric complications and schizophrenia: prenatal underdevelopment and subsequent neurodevelopmental impairment

“…Although numerous studies investigated structural brain abnormalities in schizophrenia, few have examined the possible relationship between prenatal development and brain morphology in schizophrenia. In the Danish high-risk study, lower birthweight was associated with ventricular enlargement and periventricular damage in a sample genetically predisposed to schizophrenia (Silverton et al , 1985; Cannon et al , 1989). In contrast, Mukherjee et al (1993) did not find such a relationship in chronic patients with schizophrenia.…”