1Peking University Sixth Hospital/Institute of Mental Health, Beijing 100191, China
2Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Ministry of Health (Peking University) and National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders (Peking University Sixth Hospital), Beijing 100191, China
3Peking-Tsinghua Joint Center for Life Sciences and PKU IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China

Abstract 

Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies have identified widespread and progressive grey matter volume (GMV) reductions in schizophrenia, especially in the frontal lobe. In this study, we found a progressive GMV decrease in the rostral medial frontal cortex (rMFC, including the anterior cingulate cortex) in the patient group during a 6-week follow-up of 40 patients with schizophrenia and 31 healthy controls well-matched for age, gender, and education. The higher baseline GMV in the rMFC predicted better improvement in the positive score on the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), and this might be related to the improved reality-monitoring. Besides, a higher baseline GMV in the posterior rMFC predicted better remission of general symptoms, and a lesser GMV reduction in this region was correlated with better remission of negative symptoms, probably associated with ameliorated self-referential processing and social cognition. Besides, a shorter disease course and higher educational level contributed to better improvement in the general psychopathological PANSS score, and a family history was negatively associated with improvement of the negative and total PANSS scores. These phenomena might be important for understanding the neuropathological mechanisms underlying the symptoms of schizophrenia and for making clinical decisions.

Keywords

Schizophrenia; Grey matter volume; Rostral medial frontal cortex; Treatment response; Biomarker

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