Medial prefrontal cortex pathology in schizophrenia as revealed by convergent findings from multimodal imaging
Résumé
Neuroimaging studies have found evidence of altered brain structure and function in schizophrenia, but have had complex findings regarding the localisation of abnormality. We applied multimodal imaging (voxel-based morphometry (VBM), fMRI and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) combined with white matter connectivity) to 32 chronic schizophrenic patients and matched healthy controls. At a conservative threshold of p=0.01 corrected, structural and functional imaging revealed overlapping regions of abnormality in the medial frontal cortex. DTI indicated white matter abnormality predominating in the anterior corpus callosum, and analysis of the anatomical connectivity of representative seed regions again implicated fibres projecting to the medial frontal cortex. There was also evidence of convergent abnormality in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, although here the laterality was not consistent across techniques. The medial frontal region identified by these three imaging techniques corresponds to the anterior midline node of the default mode network, a brain system which is believed to support internally directed thought, a state of watchfulness, and/or the maintenance of one's sense of self, and which is of considerable current interest in neuropsychiatric disorders.
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