OBSTETRIC COMPLICATIONS AND AGE-RELATED-CHANGES IN BRAIN MORPHOLOGY IN SCHIZOPHRENIA

Birth problems can lead to changes in brain morphology in the general population and an increased prevalence of both birth problems and alte red brain morphology are found in patients with schizophrenia. The pur pose of this study was to test the hypothesis that these two findings are related, Birth history and the size of ventricular and sulcal spac es from nine regions of the brain were assessed in 80 male subjects wi th schizophrenia, No differences were found between patients with and those without a history of birth problems for the size of any brain sp ace; however, ventricular size increased significantly with age in pat ients who had no birth complications but Hot in patients with a histor y of birth problems, The size of cortical sulci increased with age in patients with and those without a history of birth problems. These res ults suggest that region-specific rates of change in size may identify clinically meaningful patient subgroups. (C) 1996 Society of Biologic al Psychiatry