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Wednesday, December 11, 2002In the new study, the researchers used magnetic resonance imaging to scan the brains of 75 people who were deemed "at high risk" for psychosis because they had a strong family history of severe mental illness or had other risk factors, including transient or mild symptoms of mental disturbance or a decline in mental functioning. Over the next 12 months, 23 of the subjects developed a full-blown psychosis and 52 did not fall ill, the researchers found. A comparison of the brain scans from the two groups revealed significant differences in the volume of gray matter in areas of the frontal and temporal lobes and the cingulate gyrus. All three regions have been linked to schizophrenia by previous research, Dr. Pantelis said. When the researchers conducted additional brain scans on some subjects who developed psychoses, they found further reductions in gray matter not seen in the scans taken before the illnesses were diagnosed. The study (pdf file) was a small one, done among selected high-risk people. Before brain sizes can be used to screen for schizophrenic tendencies, we need to know how many people in the general population have a similar brain structure without ever developing psychosis. The other aspect of note is that the researchers looked at psychotic episodes in general, not just schizophrenia. Some psychotic episodes can be caused by severe depression, which is much easier to treat than schizophrenia, and which doesn’t have the long term poor prognosis that schizophrenia has. It's inaccurate to describe the areas of the brain in question as being responsible for schizophrenia. They are, more accurately, areas implicated in one of its symptoms. posted by Sydney on 12/11/2002 08:50:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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