Deficit symptoms can be successfully used to define reliable and valid subtypes of schizophrenia. These subtypes, deficit and non-deficit schizophrenia, differ on various clinical and functional measures. However, it is not known if there is a specific neuroanatomical substrate which underlies the production of these symptoms. The proposed project is designed to examine the involvement of specific cortical and subcortical structures hypothesized to be involved in the production of deficit symptoms. Seventy schizophrenic patients, subtyped into 35 deficit and 35 non-deficit patients, will undergo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and neuropsychological and neurological evaluations. The volume of the amygdala/hippocampus complex, caudate, and prefrontal and temporal cortices, as well as specific parietal and temporal gyri will be determined from three-dimensional """"""""spoiled grass"""""""" MRI images. Frontal, temporal, and parietal lobe function will be examined using selected neurological and neuropsychological tests. The volumetric, neurological, and neuropsychological measures will be used to test the hypothesis that a specific neural circuit, which includes the caudate and frontal and parietal cortices, is involved in the-production of deficit symptoms. In addition, the neurological and neuropsychological measures will be utilized to evaluate the functional significance of structural differences in these areas. The results from the patient group will be compared to similar measures obtained from thirty-five age, gender, and race matched normal controls. The use of the normal control group will provide a framework for interpreting the differences between deficit and non-deficit patients, as well as providing an opportunity to replicate and extend previous findings of structural differences between schizophrenic patients and normal controls.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 21 publications
