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Cortical folding in Broca's area relates to obstetric complications in schizophrenia patients and healthy controls

På svenska

Author

  • U. K. Haukvik
  • M. Schaer
  • R. Nesvag
  • Thomas McNeil
  • C. B. Hartberg
  • E. G. Jonsson
  • S. Eliez
  • I. Agartz

Summary, in English

Background. The increased occurrence of obstetric complications (OCs) in patients with schizophrenia suggests that alterations in neurodevelopment may be of importance to the aetiology of the illness. Abnormal cortical folding may reflect subtle deviation from normal neurodevelopment during the foetal or neonatal period. In the present study, we hypothesized that OCs would be related to cortical folding abnormalities in schizophrenia patients corresponding to areas where patients with schizophrenia display altered cortical folding when compared with healthy controls. Method. In total, 54 schizophrenia patients and 54 healthy control subjects underwent clinical examination and magnetic resonance image scanning on a 1.5 T scanner. Information on OCs was collected from original birth records. An automated algorithm was used to calculate a three-dimensional local gyrification index (lGI) at numerous points across the cortical mantle. Results. In both schizophrenia patients and healthy controls, an increasing number of OCs was significantly related to lower lGI in the left pars triangularis (p<0.0005) in Broca's area. For five other anatomical cortical parcellations in the left hemisphere, a similar trend was demonstrated. No significant relationships between OCs and lGI were found in the right hemisphere and there were no significant case-control differences in lGI. Conclusions. The reduced cortical folding in the left pars triangularis, associated with OCs in both patients and control subjects suggests that the cortical effect of OCs is caused by factors shared by schizophrenia patients and healthy controls rather than factors related to schizophrenia alone.

Publishing year

2012

Language

English

Pages

1329-1337

Publication/Series

Psychological Medicine

Volume

42

Issue

6

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Topic

  • Psychiatry

Keywords

  • Broca's area
  • gyrification
  • MRI
  • neurodevelopment
  • obstetric
  • complications
  • schizophrenia

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1469-8978