Morphological changes of the temporal lobe structures in schizophrenia and their link to the clinical symptoms regarding the gender difference and asymmetry

Abstract

Temporal lobe dysfunction leads to a model of the cognitive impairments inschizophrenia. The aim of this study was to evaluate changes in grey and whitematter volume, cortical area and cortical thickness of the temporal lobe inschizophrenic patients and to explore the functional significance of these changesthrough correlation with clinical symptoms of patients as measured with thepositive and negative syndrome scale. 88 control subjects and 57 chronic schizophrenicswere participated in the study. Structural magnetic resonance imagingwas performed and the DICOM images were evaluated using automatic brainsegmentation software (BrainSuite). The volume and volume fraction of the regionof interest were evaluated. The mean volume of temporal lobe was smallerin the schizophrenics (154.20±16.49 cm3) than that of controls (174.85±17.70cm3), (p≤0.05). Mean volumes of the temporal grey and temporal white matterin schizophrenics (110.41±12.25 cm3 and 43.81±4.96 cm3) were smallerthan that of controls (124.14±13.15 cm3 and 50.71±6.29 cm3), (p≤0.05). Themean cortical area pial in schizophrenics (425.8±40.95 cm2) was smaller thanthat of control (462.30±44.42 cm2), (p≤0.05), while no differences found betweenschizophrenics and controls related to the thickness of the temporal lobe(p>0.05). The male patients tend to have positive correlation between the volumesand the positive symptoms. The present study suggests that patients withschizophrenia have a generalized temporal deficit. Surface area of the temporallobe was smaller in the schizophrenics both for males and females. However,the cortex was proportionally thinner in the male schizophrenics. Positive correlationswere observed between the volume and positive symptoms more in themale patients. Finally, there was no asymmetry in the volume of temporal lobe.