Abstract
Studies of schizophrenia have not clearly defined handedness as a differentiating variable. Moreover, the relationship between thought disorder and anatomical anomalies has not been studied extensively in left-handed schizophrenic men. The twofold purpose of this study was to investigate gray matter volumes in the superior temporal gyrus of the temporal lobe (left and right hemispheres) in left-handed schizophrenic men and left-handed comparison men, in order to determine whether thought disorder in the left-handed schizophrenic men correlated with tissue volume abnormalities. Left-handed male patients (N = 8) with DSM-III-R diagnoses of schizophrenia were compared with left-handed comparison men (N = 10) matched for age, socioeconomic status, and IQ. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with a 1.5-T magnet was used to obtain scans, which consisted of contiguous 1.5-mm slices of the whole brain. MRI analyses (as previously defined by the authors) included the anterior, posterior, and total superior temporal gyrus in both the left and right hemispheres. There were three significant findings regarding the left-handed schizophrenic men: 1) bilaterally smaller gray matter volumes in the posterior superior temporal gyrus (16% smaller on the right, 15% smaller on the left); 2) a smaller volume on the right side of the total superior temporal gyrus; and 3) a positive correlation between thought disorder and tissue volume in the right anterior superior temporal gyrus. These results suggest that expression of brain pathology differs between left-handed and right-handed schizophrenic men and that the pathology is related to cognitive disturbance.
Highlights
Because of the limited number of studies in this area and the reported left-sided abnormalities in righthanded schizophrenic men, we were interested in whether left-handed schizophrenic men would show reversed or more symmetric low volumes in the superior temporal gyrus than are present in right-handed schizophrenic men and whether the anatomical abnormalities would correlate with thought disorder
The effects of region and laterality on the volumes of superior temporal gyrus structures were analyzed by using repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA), which was followed by planned comparisons in which the p value was set at ≤0.02
Asymmetry coefficients were computed for each superior temporal gyrus region / 0.5 × [23]
Summary
Studies of schizophrenia have not clearly defined handedness as a differentiating variable. The twofold purpose of this study was to investigate gray matter volumes in the superior temporal gyrus of the temporal lobe (left and right hemispheres) in left-handed schizophrenic men and lefthanded comparison men, in order to determine whether thought disorder in the left-handed schizophrenic men correlated with tissue volume abnormalities. Positive symptoms in right-handed schizophrenic men have been linked to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies showing abnormalities in the left anterior [9] and left posterior [10, 11] superior temporal gyrus. Because of the limited number of studies in this area and the reported left-sided abnormalities in righthanded schizophrenic men, we were interested in whether left-handed schizophrenic men would show reversed or more symmetric low volumes in the superior temporal gyrus than are present in right-handed schizophrenic men and whether the anatomical abnormalities would correlate with thought disorder. We hypothesized that left-handed schizophrenic men would have significantly lower volumes in the right and left superior temporal gyrus or in the right superior temporal gyrus and that these volume differences would be correlated with formal thought disorder
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