White Matter Integrity of the Corpus Callosum and Psychopathological Dimensions in Deficit and Non-Deficit Schizophrenia Patients.

Piotr Podwalski,Piotr Plichta,Błażej Misiak,Wojciech Andrusewicz,Ernest Tyburski,Anna Michalczyk,Sylwia Michałowska,Monika Mak,Jolanta Kucharska-Mazur,Agata Szulc,Katarzyna Waszczuk,Krzysztof Szczygieł,Katarzyna Rek-Owodziń,Leszek Sagan,Krzysztof Rudkowski,Maksymilian Bielecki,Jerzy Samochowiec

doi:10.3390/jcm10112225

Abstract

Deficit syndrome (DS) is a subtype of schizophrenia characterized by primary persistent negative symptoms. The corpus callosum (CC) appears to be related to psychopathology in schizophrenia. This study assessed white matter integrity in the CC using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in deficit and non-deficit schizophrenia (NDS) patients. We also investigated the psychopathological dimensions of schizophrenia and their relationship to CC integrity. Fifteen DS patients, 40 NDS patients, and 30 healthy controls (HC) underwent psychiatric evaluation and neuroimaging. We divided the CC into five regions and assessed their fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD). Psychopathology was assessed with the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. DS patients had lower FA than NDS patients and HC, and higher MD in Region 5 of the CC than did HC. NDS patients had higher MD in Region 4 of the CC. The patient groups differed in terms of negative symptoms. After differentiating clinical groups and HC, no significant correlations were observed between DTI measures and psychopathological symptoms. Our results suggest that DS and NDS are characterized by minor impairments of the posterior CC. We confirmed that DS patients have greater negative psychopathology than NDS patients. Our results are preliminary, and further studies are needed.

Highlights

Schizophrenia is a chronic disease with a complex etiopathogenesis and poor prognosis
Post hoc analyses showed that Deficit syndrome (DS) patients had lower fractional anisotropy (FA) in Region 5 of the corpus callosum (CC) than non-deficit schizophrenia (NDS)
Using the segmentation of CC proposed by Hofer [48], we explored changes in CC integrity and their relationship with psychopathology in patients with DS and NDS

Summary

Introduction

Schizophrenia is a chronic disease with a complex etiopathogenesis and poor prognosis. Schizophrenia is characterized by disturbances in perception, thinking, emotions, and cognitive functions, and it results in a wide variety of difficulties in everyday functioning [2,3,4]. It is a very heterogeneous disease; it may be possible to distinguish between different subtypes of this disease using biological markers [5]. One of the subtypes of this disease is deficit syndrome (DS), which was first described by Carpenter in 1998 [6] This subtype is characterized by dominant and persistent negative symptoms, such as poverty of speech, social withdrawal, apathy, and blunt affect. A better understanding of DS is extremely important due to its poorer prognosis [9]

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