The white matter integrity of treatment-naive, first-episode paranoid schizophrenia: a diffusion tensor imaging study

Abstract

Objective To explore the changes of the white matter integrity in paranoid schizophrenia.Methods Diffusion weighted images of the 19 patients' with paranoid schizophrenia and 30 healthy controls'whole brains were acquired with a single-shot echo planar imaging ( EPI ) sequence aligned to the straight axial plane. After preprocessed with DTI-studio and SPM5 software, the fractional anisotropy (FA) images of the two groups were compared by two-sample t-test with SPM5 software. Results Subjects of paranoid schizophrenia demonstrated reduced FA in the right thalamus white matter(x = 18 ,y = - 10,z = 14,cluster = 194, t= -3.27, P=0.000 ) and demonstrated increased FA in the right insula white matter ( x = 34, y = -10, z = 12, cluster = 113, t =4.50, P = 0.004 ). Conclusion Schizophrenia has conflicting changes of white matter integrity in some brain areas. Key words: Paranoid schizophrenia; White matter; Diffusion tensor imaging; Thalamus; Insula lobe