Frontal lobe membrane phospholipid metabolism and ventricle to brain ratioin schizophrenia: preliminary P-31-MRS and CT studies

A number of studies employing in vivo phosphorous-31 magnetic resonance spe ctroscopy (P-31-MRS) have demonstrated alterated measurements of frontal ph ospholipid and high energy phosphorus metabolism in schizophrenia. Enlargem ent of both the cerebroventricular system and the cortical sulci also has b een reported as the most consistent pathological finding in schizophrenia b y several investigators. To our knowledge, however, only two studies have s imultaneously examined structural and functional aspects of the biological substrate of schizophrenia in the same patients. Moreover, they may have fa iled to find a significant correlation between these variables because of s mall sample sizes. The possible relationship between frontal lobe membrane phospholipid metabolism and ventricle-to-brain ratio (VBR) in patients with schizophrenia was investigated. In 31 schizophrenic patients, frontal lobe membrane phospholipid metabolism was measured by P-31-MRS, and VER was mea sured by computed tomography (CT). Stepwise multiple regression analysis di sclosed that VER positively correlated only with increased phosphodiester ( PDE) level (beta = 0.381, p = 0.0345), but with no other metabolites. This finding may provide evidence for an association between structural brain ab normality and altered frontal lobe membrane metabolism in schizophrenic pat ients, although the p-value of the finding is not high.