A Systematic Characterization of Structural Brain Changes in Schizophrenia
A Systematic Characterization of Structural Brain Changes in Schizophrenia
Wasana Ediri Arachchi 1,2 • Yanmin Peng 1 • Xi Zhang 1 • Wen Qin 3 • Chuanjun Zhuo 3,4 • Chunshui Yu 1,3,5 • Meng Liang 1
1 School of Medical Imaging and Tianjin Key Laboratory of Functional Imaging, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin 300203, China
2 Department of Radiography and Radiotherapy, Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University, Ratmalana 10390, Sri Lanka
3 Department of Radiology and Tianjin Key Laboratory of Functional Imaging, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, Tianjin 300052, China
4 Department of Psychiatric-Neuroimaging-Genetics and Comorbidity Laboratory, Tianjin Mental Health Center, Tianjin Anding Hospital, Tianjin 300222, China
5 CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, China
Abstract
A systematic characterization of the similarities and differences among different methods for detecting structural brain abnormalities in schizophrenia, such as voxel-based morphometry (VBM), tensor-based morphometry (TBM), and projection-based thickness (PBT), is important for understanding the brain pathology in schizophrenia and for developing effective biomarkers for a diagnosis of schizophrenia. However, such studies are still lacking. Here, we performed VBM, TBM, and PBT analyses on T1-weighted brain MR images acquired from 116 patients with schizophrenia and 116 healthy controls. We found that, although all methods detected wide-spread structural changes, different methods captured different information – only 10.35% of the grey matter changes in cortex were detected by all three methods, and VBM only detected 11.36% of the white matter changes detected by TBM. Further, pattern classification between patients and controls revealed that combining different measures improved the classification accuracy (81.9%), indicating that fusion of different structural measures serves as a better neuroimaging marker for the objective diagnosis of schizophrenia.
Keywords
Voxel-based morphometry; Tensor-based morphometry; Deformation-based morphometry; Cortical thickness; Multivariate pattern analysis; Structural MRI; Schizophrenia
