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. 2012 Jul;138(2-3):188-91.
doi: 10.1016/j.schres.2012.04.005. Epub 2012 May 3.

An MRI study of amygdala in schizophrenia and psychotic bipolar disorder

Pamela Belmonte Mahon  1 , Haley Eldridge, Britni Crocker, Lisa Notes, Holly Gindes, Elizabeth Postell, Stacey King, James B Potash, J Tilak Ratnanather, Patrick E Barta
Affiliations

An MRI study of amygdala in schizophrenia and psychotic bipolar disorder

Pamela Belmonte Mahon et al. Schizophr Res. 2012 Jul.

Abstract

Meta-analyses report larger amygdala in subjects with bipolar disorder compared to schizophrenia. However, few studies have compared the size of amygdala in psychotic bipolar disorder with schizophrenia. Here we examine size of amygdala in a sample of 36 patients with psychotic bipolar disorder, 31 patients with schizophrenia and 27 healthy comparison subjects. Patients with schizophrenia had smaller amygdala compared with patients with psychotic bipolar disorder (p=0.014). These results suggest that change in volume of amygdala may represent a morphologic feature distinguishing psychotic bipolar disorder from schizophrenia.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Volume of amygdala for the three study groups by hemisphere
Volumes are shown as cm3 and adjusted for age and ICV. Standard error bars are shown.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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