White Matter Wiring Appears Frayed in People With Schizophrenia
The brain’s entire communication system is disrupted in patients with schizophrenia, reports a study published online in Molecular Psychiatry.
The study, which researchers say is the largest analysis to date of white matter differences in people with a particular psychiatric disorder, expands a previous theory that schizophrenia is caused by wiring problems in only the prefrontal and temporal lobes.
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“We can definitively say for the first time that schizophrenia is a disorder where white matter wiring is frayed throughout the brain,” said co-lead author Sinead Kelly, PhD, a former researcher at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, who is now a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.
Researchers reached the finding after analyzing brain imaging data from 1963 people with schizophrenia and 2359 healthy controls from North America, Australia, Asia, Europe, and South Africa. Participants underwent diffusion tensor imaging, a form of magnetic resonance imaging that tracks water molecule movement in the white matter of the brain.
The images revealed frayed communication cords throughout the brains of people with schizophrenia. The poorly insulated wiring was most evident in the corpus callosum, which allows the brain hemispheres to communicate, and in the frontal portion of the corona radiata, which is important in information processing.
“Our study will help improve the understanding of the mechanisms behind schizophrenia, a mental illness that—left untreated—often leads to unemployment, homelessness, substance abuse, and even suicide,” said Dr. Kelly. “These findings could lead to the identification of biomarkers that enable researchers to test patients’ response to schizophrenia treatment.”
—Jolynn Tumolo
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