Schizophrenia is a disorder characterized by a diverse range of symptoms that manifest themselves in varying degrees in individual patients. Some symptoms, such as delusions, hallucinations, and disorganized speech and behavior, are known as """"""""positive symptoms"""""""" (though disorganization is sometimes considered a distinct symptom type) because they are abnormal by their presence. Other symptoms, such as social withdrawal, blunted affect, and poverty of speech, are known as negative symptoms (or characterized as deficit syndrome) because they reflect the absence of normal behavior. The purpose of this study is to gain a further understanding of brain structural abnormalities in schizophrenia patients who show either primarily positive symptoms or primarily negative symptoms. We will use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to measure the volumes of temporal and prefrontal lobe structures in these two patient groups. The structural measures in the two patient groups will be compared to a group of normal control subjects. Our hypothesis is that the symptomatogy will manifest itself in different patterns of structural brain abnormalities with positive symptoms associated with reductions in temporal lobe volumes, and negative symptoms with reductions in prefrontal lobes). These findings will be important of gaining a further understanding of the link between clinical symptoms and structural abnormalities in schizophrenia.
| Anderson, Jane E; Wible, Cynthia G; McCarley, Robert W et al. (2002) An MRI study of temporal lobe abnormalities and negative symptoms in chronic schizophrenia. Schizophr Res 58:123-34 |
