STRUCTURAL MAGNETIC-RESONANCE-IMAGING ABNORMALITIES IN MEN WITH SEVERE CHRONIC-SCHIZOPHRENIA AND AN EARLY AGE AT CLINICAL ONSET

Background: Early age at onset of schizophrenia often signifies a more severe form of the illness. However, the relationship between age at onset and brain abnormalities has not been established. We assessed te mporal-limbic morphometry in severely ill men with chronic schizophren ia who had a relatively early onset of illness and examined the relati onships among regional brain volumes, clinical symptoms, and age at il lness onset. Method: Temporal lobe, superior temporal gyrus, hippocamp us, temporal horn, lateral ventricles, third ventricle, and frontopari etal volumes were measured on magnetic resonance imaging data from 56 schizophrenic men (mean [SD] age at illness onset, 16.6 [4.2] years) r ecruited from a slate hospital and 52 age- and range-matched healthy c ontrol men. Results: Patients had significantly smaller gray matter vo lumes in the temporal lobe, superior temporal gyrus, and frontoparieta l regions; smaller temporal lobe white matter volumes; and larger cere brospinal fluid volumes for temporal lobe sulci and the 3 ventricular measures. There were no group differences in hippocampal volumes. Psyc hotic symptom subscores from the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale Is;ere selectively correlated with smaller left posterior superior temporal gyrus gray matter volumes. None of the brain measurements were signifi cantly correlated with age at illness onset. Conclusions: Data from th is unique sample of severely ill schizophrenic men emphasize a pattern of structural abnormalities involving the cortex, but not the hippoca mpus, in schizophrenia. Furthermore, these data support theories sugge sting that superior temporal gyrus abnormalities contribute selectivel y to psychotic symptoms and that the extent of structural abnormalitie s is unrelated to age of clinical symptom onset.