White matter abnormalities in adolescent-onset and adult-onset schizophrenia: new directions in research

Abstract

Evaluation of: Kyriakopoulos M, Perez-Iglesias R, Woolley JB et al.: Effect of age at onset of schizophrenia on white matter abnormalities. Br. J. Psychiatry 195(4), 346–353 (2009). This study demonstrated that brain white matter abnormalities in schizophrenia may depend on developmental stage at the time of the illness. The authors reported different patterns of fractional anisotropy reductions in adolescent-onset compared with adult-onset schizophrenia. In addition, the effect of schizophrenia on fractional anisotropy is modulated by age-at-onset in bilateral prefrontal white matter. These white matter abnormalities appear to mirror the progression of gray matter volume deficits described in previous research. This study raises important questions regarding the progression of such abnormalities and highlights the need for longitudinal studies to investigate the staging of the appearance of structural and connectivity brain abnormalities in schizophrenia.