Pathologie des Thalamus und Schizophrenie - Ein Überblick

Abstract

Since the beginning of the 20 (th) century, the thalamus was regarded as a brain region which may be involved in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia. Distinct thalamic nuclei were morphologically analyzed with qualitative methods with an emphasis on the mediodorsal nucleus. However, the reported results were inconsistent. After the introduction of quantitative neuroanatomical methods, it became obvious that the volume and cell reductions are not only present in the association nuclei, but also in the limbic (N. anteroventralis) and motor thalamic nuclei (N. ventrolateralis posterior). The involvement of distinct thalamic nuclei is supported by structural MRI studies which have shown a moderate but significant volume reduction of the whole thalamus in this disease. The majority of fMRI and PET studies reported a reduction of the metabolic activity or blood flow in the thalamus in patients with schizophrenia. The similarity between the structural changes in animal models of thalamic plasticity and the structural thalamic alterations in schizophrenia suggest an involvement of neuroplasticity mechanisms in the pathogenesis of these alterations. Post-mortem studies and In-vivo receptor studies suggest altered glutamatergic, dopaminergic and membrane-associated mechanisms within thalamic pathology in schizophrenia. On the psychopathological level, there is a similarity between some of the psychic manifestations of thalamic lesions and symptoms of the schizophrenic disease. There are also reports on volume reduction of the whole thalamus in first-episode neuroleptic-free patients. It appears unlikely that the neuroleptic medication plays an etiological important role, since no significant correlations were found between the volume and cell reductions and the neuroleptic treatment period. The reviewed data suggest that distinct thalamic nuclei and therefore distinct neuronal circuits are involved in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia.

In Search of Multimodal Neuroimaging Biomarkers of Cognitive Deficits in Schizophrenia

“…, coordinating, encoding, retrieval, and planning (39). Our results are consistent with a previous report (40) in which schizophrenia patients exhibited decreased fMRI thalamic activation and showed significant positive correlation between working memory performance and thalamic functional activation (41). The striatum has a role in the planning and some executive functions.…”

Discriminating schizophrenia and bipolar disorder by fusing fMRI and DTI in a multimodal CCA+ joint ICA model

“…The thalamus has multiple functions and is believed to act as a relay station between many subcortical areas and the cerebral cortex. It was also reported to be impaired in both SZ and BP (Cerullo, et al 2009; Danos 2004). Our results are consistent with the above findings and suggest that these deficits might be related to shared risk factors and disease mechanisms common to both disorders.…”

Is Aberrant Functional Connectivity A Psychosis Endophenotype? A Resting State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

“…Thalamus is considered as a relay station between many subcortical regions and cerebral cortex. Among other functions, thalamus has been implicated in emotion processing [70] and has been reported to show lack of connectivity in both SZ and BP probands [71,72,73]. Prior studies suggest that abnormal functional connectivity in thalamus might be attributable to shared risk genes in SZ and BP disorder [74].…”