Choroid Plexus Enlargement and Allostatic Load in Schizophrenia.

Although schizophrenia is a brain disorder, increasing evidence suggests that there may be body-wide involvement in this illness. However, direct evidence of brain structures involved in the presumed peripheral-central interaction in schizophrenia is still unclear. Seventy-nine previously treatment-naïve first-episode schizophrenia patients who were within 2-week antipsychotics initial stabilization, and 41 age- and sex-matched healthy controls were enrolled in the study.

Brain Abnormalities in Different Phases of Working Memory in Schizophrenia: An Integrative Multi-Modal MRI Study.

The current study aimed to examine both gray matter and functional activity changes in schizophrenia by combing both structural and task-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Nineteen patients with schizophrenia and 17 controls were recruited. The fMRI scan was performed while performing a working memory (WM) task.

P50 suppression deficits and psychopathology in Han Chinese patients with schizophrenia.

Objective: Numerous studies have reported P50 gating deficits in schizophrenia, though with mixed results. Moreover, few studies have explored the association between P50 gating deficits and psychopathology in Chinese patients with schizophrenia. In the present study, we investigated the P50 auditory sensory gating patterns and their correlations with clinical symptoms in a large sample of Han Chinese patients with schizophrenia.

Extensive white matter abnormalities and clinical symptoms in drug-naive patients with first-episode schizophrenia: a voxel-based diffusion tensor imaging study.

Background: Increasing evidence shows that disruption of connectivity has been implicated as a central abnormality in schizophrenia, and the alterations in white matter may be the core basis for this disconnection. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) has shown white matter abnormalities in first-episode schizophrenia. However, few studies have examined the correlation between clinical symptoms and white matter abnormalities in drug-naive patients with first-episode schizophrenia.

Smoking, MATRICS consensus cognitive battery and P50 sensory gating in a Han Chinese population.

Background: The effects of smoking on cognitive performance have long been studied, with mixed results. P50 sensory gating has been used as endophenotype for studying nicotinic systems genetics, and P50 gating deficits have been reported to be a sensitive biomarker for cognitive impairment in schizophrenia. This study examined the inter-relationship between P50 suppression, cognitive function, and smoking in a healthy Han Chinese population, which has not been reported before.

Changes of gray matter volume and amplitude of low-frequency oscillations in amnestic MCI: An integrative multi-modal MRI study.

Background: Numerous studies have reported that the amnestic-type mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) patients have impaired brain structural integrity and functional alterations separately.

Purpose: To investigate the changes of gray matter and amplitude of low-frequency oscillations in patients with aMCI by combining structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Material And Methods: Thirty-four patients with aMCI and 34 controls were recruited.

Topological organization of the human brain functional connectome across the lifespan.

Human brain function undergoes complex transformations across the lifespan. We employed resting-state functional MRI and graph-theory approaches to systematically chart the lifespan trajectory of the topological organization of human whole-brain functional networks in 126 healthy individuals ranging in age from 7 to 85 years. Brain networks were constructed by computing Pearson's correlations in blood-oxygenation-level-dependent temporal fluctuations among 1024 parcellation units followed by graph-based network analyses.

Visual scanning of emotional faces in schizophrenia.

This study investigated eye movement differences during facial emotion recognition between 101 patients with chronic schizophrenia and 101 controls. Independent of facial emotion, patients with schizophrenia processed facial information inefficiently; they showed significantly more direct fixations that lasted longer to interest areas (IAs), such as the eyes, nose, mouth, and nasion. The total fixation number, mean fixation duration, and total fixation duration were significantly increased in schizophrenia.

Can Taichi reshape the brain? A brain morphometry study.

Although research has provided abundant evidence for Taichi-induced improvements in psychological and physiological well-being, little is known about possible links to brain structure of Taichi practice. Using high-resolution MRI of 22 Tai Chi Chuan (TCC) practitioners and 18 controls matched for age, sex and education, we set out to examine the underlying anatomical correlates of long-term Taichi practice at two different levels of regional specificity. For this purpose, parcel-wise and vertex-wise analyses were employed to quantify the difference between TCC practitioners and the controls based on cortical surface reconstruction.

Ventral medial prefrontal functional connectivity and emotion regulation in chronic schizophrenia: a pilot study.

People with schizophrenia exhibit impaired social cognitive functions, particularly emotion regulation. Abnormal activations of the ventral medial prefrontal cortex (vMPFC) during emotional tasks have been demonstrated in schizophrenia, suggesting its important role in emotion processing in patients. We used the resting-state functional connectivity approach, setting a functionally relevant region, the vMPFC, as a seed region to examine the intrinsic functional interactions and communication between the vMPFC and other brain regions in schizophrenic patients.

Dysfunction in different phases of working memory in schizophrenia: evidence from ERP recordings.

The present study combined a time-locked paradigm and high-time-resolution event-related potential (ERP) recordings to examine different phases of working memory, including early visual processing and late memory-related processes of encoding, maintenance, and retrieval, in 67 adults with schizophrenia and 46 healthy controls. Alterations in ERP components were correlated with task performance. Patients performed significantly worse in the working memory task than healthy subjects, although all subjects' accuracy exceeded 80%.