Childhood Trauma Across the Schizophrenia Spectrum: A Comparison of Schizotypal Personality Disorder and Schizophrenia.

Background: The etiology of schizophrenia involves both biological and environmental risk factors. Studying childhood trauma in disorders along the schizophrenia spectrum, including schizotypal personality disorder (SPD), can inform early risk and protective factors for psychosis. However, no study has directly compared childhood trauma between SPD and schizophrenia.

Neural correlates of impulsivity in bipolar disorder: A systematic review and clinical implications.

Impulsivity is a common feature of bipolar disorder (BD) with ramifications for functional impairment and premature mortality. This PRISMA-guided systematic review aims to integrate findings on the neurocircuitry associated with impulsivity in BD. We searched for functional neuroimaging studies that examined rapid-response impulsivity and choice impulsivity using the Go/No-Go Task, Stop-Signal Task, and Delay Discounting Task.

Hyperreactivity and Impaired Habituation of Startle Amplitude During Unpleasant Pictures in Borderline but Not Schizotypal Personality Disorder: Quantifying Emotion Dysregulation.

Background: Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by greater intensity of reactions to unpleasant emotional cues and a slower-than-normal return of these responses to baseline. Habituation is defined as decreased response to repeated stimulation. Affect-modulated startle (AMS), a translational psychophysiological approach, is mediated by the amygdala and used to study emotion processing in both humans and animals.

Frontotemporal thalamic connectivity in schizophrenia and schizotypal personality disorder.

Schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) resembles schizophrenia, but with attenuated brain abnormalities and the absence of psychosis. The thalamus is integral for processing and transmitting information across cortical regions and widely implicated in the neurobiology of schizophrenia. Comparing thalamic connectivity in SPD and schizophrenia could reveal an intermediate schizophrenia-spectrum phenotype to elucidate neurobiological risk and protective factors in psychosis.

Anomalous Amygdala Habituation to Unpleasant Stimuli Among Unmedicated Individuals With Borderline Personality Disorder and a History of Self-Harming Behavior.

Self-harming behavior (SB) is one of the diagnostic criteria for borderline personality disorder (BPD). However, it is not exhibited by all individuals with BPD. Furthermore, studies examining the neural correlates of SB in BPD are lacking.

Reprint of: Fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography studies of the schizophrenia spectrum: The legacy of Monte S. Buchsbaum, M.D.

This is a selective review of the work of Buchsbaum and colleagues. It revisits and pays tribute to four decades of publications employing positron emission tomography (PET) with fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) to examine the neurobiology of schizophrenia-spectrum disorders (including schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) and schizophrenia). Beginning with a landmark FDG-PET study in 1982 reporting hypofrontality in unmedicated schizophrenia patients, Buchsbaum and colleagues published high-impact work on regional glucose metabolic rate (GMR) abnormalities in the spectrum.

Short communication: Diffusion tensor anisotropy in the cingulate in borderline and schizotypal personality disorder.

Despite considerable phenomentological differences between borderline personality disorder (BPD) and schizotypal personality disorder (SPD), research increasingly provides evidence that some BPD symptoms overlap with SPD symptoms (e.g., disturbed cognitions).

Fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography studies of the schizophrenia spectrum: The legacy of Monte S. Buchsbaum, M.D.

This is a selective review of the work of Buchsbaum and colleagues. It revisits and pays tribute to four decades of publications employing positron emission tomography (PET) with fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) to examine the neurobiology of schizophrenia-spectrum disorders (including schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) and schizophrenia). Beginning with a landmark FDG-PET study in 1982 reporting hypofrontality in unmedicated schizophrenia patients, Buchsbaum and colleagues published high-impact work on regional glucose metabolic rate (GMR) abnormalities in the spectrum.

Increased white matter metabolic rates in autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia.

Both autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and schizophrenia are often characterized as disorders of white matter integrity. Multimodal investigations have reported elevated metabolic rates, cerebral perfusion and basal activity in various white matter regions in schizophrenia, but none of these functions has previously been studied in ASD. We used fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography to compare white matter metabolic rates in subjects with ASD (n = 25) to those with schizophrenia (n = 41) and healthy controls (n = 55) across a wide range of stereotaxically placed regions-of-interest.

Positron emission tomography assessment of cerebral glucose metabolic rates in autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia.

Several models have been proposed to account for observed overlaps in clinical features and genetic predisposition between schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder. This study assessed similarities and differences in topological patterns and vectors of glucose metabolism in both disorders in reference to these models. Co-registered fluorodeoxyglucose PET and MRI scans were obtained in 41 schizophrenia, 25 ASD, and 55 healthy control subjects.

Diametrical relationship between gray and white matter volumes in autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia.

Autism spectrum disorders and schizophrenia have been variously characterized as separate nosological entities with overlapping deficits in social cognition or diametrical extremes of a phenotypic continuum. This study aimed to determine how these models apply to comparative morphometric data. MRI scans of the brain were obtained in 49 subjects with schizophrenia, 20 subjects with autism and 39 healthy controls.

Corpus callosum size and diffusion tensor anisotropy in adolescents and adults with schizophrenia.

The corpus callosum has been implicated as a region of dysfunctional connectivity in schizophrenia, but the association between age and callosal pathology is unclear. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and diffusion-tensor imaging (DTI) were performed on adults (n=34) and adolescents (n=17) with schizophrenia and adult (n=33) and adolescent (n=15) age- and sex-matched healthy controls. The corpus callosum was manually traced on each participant׳s MRI, and the DTI scan was co-registered to the MRI.

White matter abnormalities in schizophrenia and schizotypal personality disorder.

Prior diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) studies examining schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) and schizophrenia, separately have shown that compared with healthy controls (HCs), patients show frontotemporal white matter (WM) abnormalities. This is the first DTI study to directly compare WM tract coherence with tractography and fractional anisotropy (FA) across the schizophrenia spectrum in a large sample of demographically matched HCs (n = 55), medication-naive SPD patients (n = 49), and unmedicated/never-medicated schizophrenia patients (n = 22) to determine whether (a) frontal-striatal-temporal WM tract abnormalities in schizophrenia are similar to, or distinct from those observed in SPD; and (b) WM tract abnormalities are associated with clinical symptom severity indicating a common underlying pathology across the spectrum. Compared with both the HC and SPD groups, schizophrenia patients showed WM abnormalities, as indexed by lower FA in the temporal lobe (inferior longitudinal fasciculus) and cingulum regions.

Larger putamen size in antipsychotic-naïve individuals with schizotypal personality disorder.

Objective: To (a) compare the size of the dorsal and ventral striatum (caudate and putamen) in a large sample of antipsychotic-naïve individuals with schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) and healthy control participants; (b) examine symptom correlates of striatal size in SPD.

Methods: The left and right caudate and putamen were hand-traced on structural MRI at five dorsal to ventral slice levels in 76 SPD and 148 healthy control participants. A Group×Region (caudate, putamen)×Slice (1-5: ventral, 2, 3, 4, dorsal)×Hemisphere (left, right) mixed-model MANOVA was conducted on size relative to whole brain.

Anterior limb of the internal capsule in schizotypal personality disorder: fiber-tract counting, volume, and anisotropy.

Mounting evidence suggests that white matter abnormalities and altered subcortical-cortical connectivity may be central to the pathology of schizophrenia (SZ). The anterior limb of the internal capsule (ALIC) is an important thalamo-frontal white-matter tract shown to have volume reductions in SZ and to a lesser degree in schizotypal personality disorder (SPD). While fractional anisotropy (FA) and connectivity abnormalities in the ALIC have been reported in SZ, they have not been examined in SPD.

Potentiated amygdala response to repeated emotional pictures in borderline personality disorder.

Background: Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by an inability to regulate emotional responses. The amygdala is important in learning about the valence (goodness and badness) of stimuli and functions abnormally in BPD.

Methods: Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was employed in three groups: unmedicated BPD (n = 33) and schizotypal personality disorder (n = 28) participants and healthy control subjects (n = 32) during a task involving an intermixed series of unpleasant, neutral, and pleasant pictures each presented twice within their respective trial block/run.

Anterior and posterior cingulate cortex volume in healthy adults: effects of aging and gender differences.

The cingulate cortex frequently shows gray matter loss with age as well as gender differences in structure and function, but little is known about whether individual cingulate Brodmann areas show gender-specific patterns of age-related volume decline. This study examined age-related changes, gender differences, and the interaction of age and gender in the relative volume of cingulate gray matter in areas 25, 24, 31, 23, and 29, over seven decades of adulthood. Participants included healthy, age-matched men and women, aged 20-87 (n=70).

Correlations between ventricular enlargement and gray and white matter volumes of cortex, thalamus, striatum, and internal capsule in schizophrenia.

Ventricular enlargement is one of the most consistent abnormal structural brain findings in schizophrenia and has been used to infer brain shrinkage. However, whether ventricular enlargement is related to local overlying cortex and/or adjacent subcortical structures or whether it is related to brain volume change globally has not been assessed. We systematically assessed interrelations of ventricular volumes with gray and white matter volumes of 40 Brodmann areas (BAs), the thalamus and its medial dorsal nucleus and pulvinar, the internal capsule, caudate and putamen.

Cingulate and temporal lobe fractional anisotropy in schizotypal personality disorder.

Background: Consistent with the clinical picture of milder symptomatology in schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) than schizophrenia, morphological studies indicate SPD abnormalities in temporal lobe regions but to a much lesser extent in prefrontal regions implicated in schizophrenia. Lower fractional anisotropy (FA), a measure of white-matter integrity within prefrontal, temporal, and cingulate regions has been reported in schizophrenia but has been little studied in SPD.

Aims: The study aim was to examine temporal and prefrontal white matter FA in 30 neuroleptic-naïve SPD patients and 35 matched healthy controls (HCs).

Basal Ganglia activity in pathological gambling: a fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography study.

Background: Pathological gambling (PG) is a disorder classified as an impulse control disorder (DSM-IV) bridging impulsive, compulsive and addictive behaviors. The striatum and thalamus are supposed to be involved in the pathophysiological substrate of these behaviors. An increased relative glucose metabolic rate (rGMR) in patients with a diagnosis of PG had previously been reported in the medial and orbitofrontal cortex.

Diffusion tensor anisotropy in the cingulate gyrus in schizophrenia.

It has been proposed that schizophrenia results partly from altered brain connectivity. The anterior cingulate cortex in particular has been demonstrated to be affected in schizophrenia, with studies reporting reduced volume, altered neuronal arrangement, decreased anisotropy in diffusion tensor images, and hypometabolism. We used a 3T Siemens scanner to acquire structural and diffusion tensor imaging in age-and sex-matched groups of 41 adults with chronic schizophrenia, 6 adults with recent-onset schizophrenia, and 38 healthy control subjects.

FDG-PET and MRI imaging of the effects of sertindole and haloperidol in the prefrontal lobe in schizophrenia.

Sertindole, a 2nd generation antipsychotic with low movement disorder side effects, was compared with haloperidol in a 6-week crossover study. Fifteen patients with schizophrenia (mean age=42.6, range=22-59, 11 men and 4 women) received sertindole (12-24 mg) or haloperidol (4-16 mg) for 6 weeks and then received a FDG-PET scan and an anatomical MRI.