Abstract
Improving quality of life has been recognized as an important outcome for schizophrenia treatment, although the fundamental determinants are not well understood. In this study, we investigated the association between brain structural abnormalities and objective quality of life in schizophrenia patients. Thirty-three schizophrenia patients and 42 age-, sex-, and education-matched healthy participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging. The Quality of Life Scale was used to measure objective quality of life in schizophrenia patients. Voxel-based morphometry was performed to identify regional brain alterations that correlate with Quality of Life Scale score in the patient group. Schizophrenia patients showed gray matter reductions in the frontal, temporal, limbic, and subcortical regions. We then performed voxel-based multiple regression analysis in these regions to identify any correlations between regional gray matter volume and Quality of Life Scale scores. We found that among four subcategories of the scale, the Instrumental Role category score correlated with gray matter volume in the right anterior insula in schizophrenia patients. In addition, this correlation was shown to be mediated by negative symptoms. Our findings suggest that the neural basis of objective quality of life might differ topographically from that of subjective QOL in schizophrenia.
Highlights
Improving quality of life (QOL) is considered a crucial factor in the treatment of schizophrenia [1]
In consideration of this report [12], here we investigated the relationship between objective QOL, and gray matter (GM) alterations with an aim to illustrate the contrast of neural basis of subjective and objective QOLs in schizophrenia patients
Multiple regression analyses found that Instrumental Role (IR) score positively correlated with right anterior insula (AI) GM volume in the patient group (Fig 2)
Summary
Improving quality of life (QOL) is considered a crucial factor in the treatment of schizophrenia [1]. Factors associated with QOL in schizophrenia, and which can serve as predictors of QOL, include depressive symptoms [2,3,4], adverse drug effects [5], cognitive dysfunction [6,7,8,9], occupation [10], and positive [11, 12] and negative symptoms [6, 11, 13,14,15,16], in schizophrenia. There are several inconsistencies in the results on factors influencing QOL in schizophrenia patients [17]. While some studies report weak to moderate relationships. Insular GMV and Objective QOL in Schizophrenia. None of the funding sources had a role in study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report or in the decision to submit the manuscript for publication
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