"First images" claimed to be found of the impact of Schizophrenia on the brain

Public release date: 24-Sep-2001
University of California - Los Angeles
http://www.ucsd.edu/

UCLA researchers map how Schizophrenia engulfs teen brains

UCLA brain researchers using a powerful new analysis technique have created the
first images showing the devastating impact of schizophrenia on the brain. The
findings, published in the Sept. 25 issue of the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, show how a dynamic wave of tissue loss engulfs the brains
of schizophrenic patients in their teenage years.

The findings may have key diagnostic implications. Aided by a better
understanding of how psychosis develops, researchers can detect aberrant loss
early and treat patients as early as possible. Future medications might fight
the rapid loss of brain tissue, and their effectiveness could be assessed using
the imaging technique.

“This is the first study to visualize how schizophrenia develops in the brain,”
said Paul Thompson, an assistant professor of neurology at the UCLA School of
Medicine and the study’s chief investigator. “Scientists have been perplexed
about how schizophrenia progresses and whether there are any physical changes
in the brain. We were stunned to see a spreading wave of tissue loss that began
in a small region of the brain. It moved across the brain like a forest fire,
destroying more tissue as the disease progressed.”

Scientists at UCLA and the National Institute of Mental Health employed
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology to scan a group of teenagers
repeatedly as they developed schizophrenia. Using a new image analysis method
that detects very fine changes in the brain, the scientists detected gray
matter loss of more than 10 percent first in the parietal, or outer, regions of
the brain; this loss spread to engulf the rest of the brain over five years.

Patients with the worst brain tissue loss also had the worst symptoms, which
included hallucinations, delusions, bizarre and psychotic thoughts, hearing
voices, and depression. Schizophrenia affects an estimated 1 percent of
Americans. Its causes are unknown, and the disease typically hits without
warning in the late teens or 20s.

Researchers also detected a mild loss of brain tissue in healthy teenagers.
Between ages 13 and 18, they lost about 1 percent gray matter per year in the
parietal cortices, the region where the spreading wave began. In
schizophrenics, this brain tissue loss gained momentum and swept into the
sensory and motor regions. The frontal eye fields lost tissue fastest, at about
5 percent per year. These fields control eye movements, which often are
disturbed in schizophrenic patients.

In another first, the brain-mapping technique reveals underlying changes in the
brain's anatomical hardware as teenagers mature normally or develop psychosis.
The identification of previously unseen waves of loss and key anatomical
changes will allow scientists to establish powerful links between cognitive and
behavioral changes and rapid changes in underlying brain structures.

###
The UCLA and NIMH researchers are also applying this new imaging approach to
relatives of schizophrenic patients to screen them for early brain changes. The
disease runs in families, but specific risk genes have not yet been found.
Although the causes of the disease are currently unknown, some non-genetic
trigger, in the teenage years, may activate the disease in some individuals but
not others.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2001-09/uoc--urm092401.php

Replies:

Re: Schizophrenia Brain Research, by Robert DePaolo, 02/12/02 Re:first imgA, by craig, 06/08/02 Re:first imgA, by craig, 06/08/02

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