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Meta-Analysis
. 2011 Nov;261 Suppl 2(Suppl 2):S166-71.
doi: 10.1007/s00406-011-0249-8. Epub 2011 Sep 10.

Progressive pathology is functionally linked to the domains of language and emotion: meta-analysis of brain structure changes in schizophrenia patients

Thomas Nickl-Jockschat  1 , Frank Schneider, Alena D Pagel, Angie R Laird, Peter T Fox, Simon B Eickhoff
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Progressive pathology is functionally linked to the domains of language and emotion: meta-analysis of brain structure changes in schizophrenia patients

Thomas Nickl-Jockschat et al. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2011 Nov.

Abstract

Schizophrenia is a neuropsychiatric disorder entailing progressive psychotic, cognitive and affective symptoms. Several imaging studies identified brain structure abnormalities in schizophrenia patients, particularly in fronto-temporal regions and evidence for progressive anatomical changes. Here, we synthesised these findings by quantitative coordinate-based meta-analysis, assessing regions of consistently reported brain structure changes, their physiological functions and the correlation of their likelihood with disease duration. The meta-analysis revealed four significant clusters of convergent grey matter reduction, while one cluster indicated higher grey matter values in patients. A voxel-wise analysis revealed a correlation between grey matter reduction and disease duration in the left anterior insula. Functional characterisation revealed significant association with reward, affective processing and language functions. The current analysis allowed the identification of consistent morphometric changes across a large sample of studies in regions that are associated with neurophysiological functions that are altered as hallmarks of schizophrenia psychopathology. The observation that the location of presumably progressive pathology is functionally linked to language and emotion is well in line with increasing deficits in these domains with disease progression in schizophrenia.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
a 4 clusters indicated convergent regional atrophy in schizophrenia patients. Clusters were located in the left periinsular region, the bilateral thalamus, the left medial temporal lobe (mainly the laterobasal amygdala) and the left basal forebrain/ventral striatum. b Only one cluster indicating significantly increased grey matter was found. It was located in the left putamen
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
A voxel-wise analysis assessing whether the probability of finding differences between patients and controls was related to the mean disease duration of the patients included in the particular sample yielded one cluster located in the left temporal pole
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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