TY - JOUR
T1 - Structural and functional brain abnormalities in drug-naive, first-episode, and chronic patients with schizophrenia
T2 - A multimodal MRI study
AU - Wu, Fengchun
AU - Zhang, Yue
AU - Yang, Yongzhe
AU - Lu, Xiaobing
AU - Fang, Ziyan
AU - Huang, Jianwei
AU - Kong, Lingyin
AU - Chen, Jun
AU - Ning, Yuping
AU - Li, Xiaobo
AU - Wu, Kai
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Wu et al.
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - Background: Structural and functional brain abnormalities in schizophrenia (SZ) have been widely reported. However, a few studies have investigated both structural and functional characteristics in SZ patients at different stages to understand the neuropathology of SZ. Methods: In this study, we recruited 44 first-episode drug-naive SZ (FESZ) patients, 44 medicated chronic SZ (CSZ) patients, and 56 normal controls (NCs) and acquired their structural and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We then made group comparisons on structural and functional characteristics, including regional gray matter volume (GMV), regional homogeneity, amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation, and degree centrality. A linear support vector machine (SVM) combined with a recursive feature elimination (RFE) algorithm was implemented to discriminate three groups. Results: Our results indicated that the regional GMV was significantly decreased in patients compared with that in NCs; CSZ patients have more diffused GMV decreases primarily involved in the frontal and temporal lobes when compared with FESZ patients. Both FESZ and CSZ patients showed significant functional alterations compared with NCs; when compared with FESZ patients, CSZ patients showed significant reductions in functional characteristics in several brain regions associated with auditory, visual processing, and sensorimotor functions. Moreover, a linear SVM combined with a RFE algorithm was implemented to discriminate three groups. The accuracies of the three classifiers were 79.80%, 83.16%, and 81.71%, respectively. The performance of classifiers in this study with multimodal MRI was better than that of previous discriminative analyses of SZ patients with single-modal MRI. Conclusion: Our findings bring new insights into the understanding of the neuropathology of SZ and contribute to stage-specific biomarkers in diagnosis and interventions of SZ.
AB - Background: Structural and functional brain abnormalities in schizophrenia (SZ) have been widely reported. However, a few studies have investigated both structural and functional characteristics in SZ patients at different stages to understand the neuropathology of SZ. Methods: In this study, we recruited 44 first-episode drug-naive SZ (FESZ) patients, 44 medicated chronic SZ (CSZ) patients, and 56 normal controls (NCs) and acquired their structural and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We then made group comparisons on structural and functional characteristics, including regional gray matter volume (GMV), regional homogeneity, amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation, and degree centrality. A linear support vector machine (SVM) combined with a recursive feature elimination (RFE) algorithm was implemented to discriminate three groups. Results: Our results indicated that the regional GMV was significantly decreased in patients compared with that in NCs; CSZ patients have more diffused GMV decreases primarily involved in the frontal and temporal lobes when compared with FESZ patients. Both FESZ and CSZ patients showed significant functional alterations compared with NCs; when compared with FESZ patients, CSZ patients showed significant reductions in functional characteristics in several brain regions associated with auditory, visual processing, and sensorimotor functions. Moreover, a linear SVM combined with a RFE algorithm was implemented to discriminate three groups. The accuracies of the three classifiers were 79.80%, 83.16%, and 81.71%, respectively. The performance of classifiers in this study with multimodal MRI was better than that of previous discriminative analyses of SZ patients with single-modal MRI. Conclusion: Our findings bring new insights into the understanding of the neuropathology of SZ and contribute to stage-specific biomarkers in diagnosis and interventions of SZ.
KW - Classification
KW - Multimodal MRI
KW - SVM
KW - Schizophrenia
KW - Support vector machine
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85057564492&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85057564492&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.2147/NDT.S174356
DO - 10.2147/NDT.S174356
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85057564492
SN - 1176-6328
VL - 14
SP - 2889
EP - 2904
JO - Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment
JF - Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment
ER -