Complementary diffusion tensor imaging study of the corpus callosum in patients with first-episode and chronic schizophrenia

Chapter 16 discusses what happens when the brain misbehaves and some of the psychological disorders that result.  Schizophrenia is a very serious psychological disorder that can affect many aspects of an individual's life.  It is defined as a persistent, chronic mental disorder that affects behavior, thought, and emotion.  Warning signs of this disorder include hallucinations, delusions, thought incoherencies, and chaiotic behaviors.  In the study I found, researchers wanted to examine the role that the corpus callosum may possibly play in schizophrenia.  They wanted to see if abnormalities in the white matter of the corpus callosum appear in early stages of the disorder or if they result from progression of the disorder.  Because the corpus callosum transmits information between the left and right hemisphere, researchers believe abnormalities in the function of the corpus callosum to be a core symptom of schizophrenia.  In this study, they recruited 15 people with first-episode schizophrenia (people with illness duration of less than 1.5 years), 15 with chronic schizophrenia (people with illness duration of more than 2 years), and 15 healthy controls.  They used a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique known as diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to examine the corpus callosum of each participant.  The DTI looks at the directional organization of white matter.  After performing the DTI on the participants, they found reduced fractional anisotropy values (an important quantitative indicator for DTI) in the genu of the corpus callosum in the patients with chronic schizophrenia compared to the healthy controls.  They found less significant abnormalities in those with first-episode schizophrenia.  These findings suggest that abnormalities of white matter in the corpus callosum are a result of the progression of schizophrenia.

Xiangjuan, K., Xuan, O., Haojuan, T., Haihong, L., Li, Jingping, Z., & ... Zhening, L. (2011). Complementary diffusion tensor imaging study of the corpus callosum in patients with first-episode and chronic schizophrenia. Journal Of Psychiatry & Neuroscience, 36(2), 120-125. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. doi:10.1503/jpn.100041