(July 8, 2015) Structural
brain abnormalities in patients with schizophrenia, providing insight into how
the condition may develop and respond to treatment, have been identified in an
internationally collaborative study led by a Georgia State University
scientist.
Scientists at more than a dozen locations across the United
States and Europe analyzed brain MRI scans from 2,028 schizophrenia patients
and 2,540 healthy controls, assessed with standardized methods at 15 centers
worldwide. The findings, published in Molecular Psychiatry, help further the
understanding of the mental disorder.
The work was the outcome of the Enhancing Neuroimaging
Genetics through Meta-Analysis project (ENIGMA), from the Schizophrenia Working
Group that is co-chaired by Jessica Turner, associate professor of psychology
and neuroscience at Georgia State, and Theo van Erp, assistant research
professor in psychiatry at the University of California, Irvine.
“This is the largest structural brain meta-analysis to date
in schizophrenia, and specifically, it is not a meta-analysis pulled only from
the literature,” said Turner. “Investigators dug into their desk drawers,
including unpublished data to participate in these analyses. Everyone performed
the same analyses using the same statistical models, and we combined the
results. We then identified brain regions that differentiated patients from controls
and ranked them according to their effect sizes.”