No evidence for astrogliosis in brains of schizophrenic patients. A post-mortem study

Schizophrenia is clinically and neuropsychologically characterized by sever e cognitive and functional impairment suggesting the presence of a neurodeg enerative process in the brains of affected individuals, A variety of neuro anatomical changes have been described such as loss and disorientation of n eurons in grey and white matter and cortical atrophy. However, the neuropat hological basis for schizophrenia is still unclear. In the present study we monitored the density of GFAP-positive astrocytes in brains of 33 schizoph renic patients and 26 healthy controls. Both grey matter (entorhinal cortex and subiculum) and white matter (premotor cortex, subventricular zone of t he third ventricle and next to inferior horn) structures were measured bila terally. The overall finding was that there is no evidence for increased as trogliosis in brains of schizophrenic patients vs healthy controls. Therefo re, degeneration is unlikely to be the main neuropathological mechanism in schizophrenic brains.