PROFILE OF CORTICAL GRAY-MATTER VOLUME DEFICITS CHARACTERISTIC OF SCHIZOPHRENIA

Quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies from our laborat ory have reported that patients with schizophrenia show a widespread c ortical gray matter volume deficit, which is especially pronounced in the prefrontal and anterior superior temporal cortices. The present st udy compared two separate samples of schizophrenic patients - 71 men f rom a Veterans Administration (VA) hospital and a sample of 57 severel y ill men from a state hospital (SH) - in an effort to test whether th e pattern of brain volume abnormalities previously observed in VA schi zophrenic patients can he generalized to other groups of schizophrenic patients. MRI-derived brain volumes of gray matter, white matter and sulcal cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in six cortical regions, and CSF in t he lateral and third ventricles were computed. All MRI volumes were ad justed for normal variation in head size and age and were expressed as standardized Z-scores, which also permitted structures of different s izes to be compared directly. The two schizophrenic groups displayed s imilar patterns of volume abnormalities: cortical gray matter but not white matter volume deficits that were widespread but especially notab le in the prefrontal and temporal regions. The regional gray matter de ficits in the SH group were generally greater than those in the VA gro up, particularly in the prefrontal and posterior superior temporal reg ions. Both schizophrenic groups had abnormally large volumes of the co rtical sulci and lateral and third ventricles; however, the SH group s howed greater enlargements, the most prominent occurring in the ventri cles and temporal sulci. The overlapping patterns of cortical gray mat ter deficits in the two groups provide evidence for generality of this pattern of regional brain volume abnormalities in schizophrenia.