Gray matter volume reduction in obsessive–compulsive disorder with schizotypal personality trait

Abstract

Objectives Obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) with schizotypal personality trait (SPT) and OCD without SPT demonstrated differences in cognitive dysfunction and treatment response. This study aimed to investigate whether brain volume differs between OCD with SPT and OCD without SPT. Methods OCD with SPT ( n = 20), OCD without SPT ( n = 47), healthy comparison subjects ( n = 83) and schizophrenic patients ( n = 59) participated in this study. We assessed brain volume such as gray matter (GM), white matter (WM) and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) using magnetic resonance imaging. The imaging data sets were filtered using anisotropic diffusion methods to improve the signal to noise ratio. The semi-automated region-growing method was used to remove images of tissues exterior to the brain. The fuzzy C-means algorithm was used to segment the extracted brain images into gray matter, white matter and cerebrospinal fluid. Results OCD with SPT ( p = 0.048) and Schizophrenic patients ( p < 0.001) demonstrated a significant GM volume reduction compared to healthy controls. OCD without SPT revealed no significant GM volume reduction compared to healthy controls ( p = 0.504). Conclusion This study suggests that OCD with SPT could be distinguished as a distinct subtype of OCD, based on observations of gray matter volume.