Magnetic resonance imaging study of the ventricle-brain ratio in parents of schizophrenia subjects.

Structural abnormalities found in probands with schizophrenia have been reported to occur to some degree in their unaffected relatives. However, there has yet to be a study that has focused on brain changes of parents of schizophrenics who are not the presumed obligate carriers. Using MRI, the authors studied the ventricle-brain ratio (VBR) of 9 pairs of parents of schizophrenics and 18 age- and sex-matched healthy controls. VBRs of the unaffected parents of schizophrenics were significantly larger than those of the controls. Our results suggest that large VBRs aggregate in the parents of schizophrenics and may serve as an indicator of vulnerability to the disorder.