The relationship between volumetric brain changes and cognitive function: A family study on schizophrenia

doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2004.06.026

Biological Psychiatry

Volume 56, Issue 6, 15 September 2004, Pages 447-453

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2004.06.026 Get rights and content

Background

We examined the cerebral correlates of intelligence, memory, and executive processing in 56 patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and 90 of their nonpsychotic relatives to establish whether the pattern of structure–function relationships in these two groups was different from that in 55 control subjects.

Methods

Magnetic resonance imaging data were acquired, and volumetric measurements were made for whole brain, prefrontal region, lateral ventricles, third ventricle, temporal lobes, hippocampi, and cerebellum.

Results

In the total sample, full intelligence quotient (IQ) and verbal IQ correlated with the volume of the whole brain and right hippocampus; the latter was also associated with performance IQ. Left hippocampal size was associated with verbal IQ and, in control subjects and nonpsychotic relatives only, with estimated full IQ. Delayed verbal memory was linked to cerebellar and inversely to left hippocampal volume. Discrepancies in the relationship pattern emerged in patients with schizophrenia between left hippocampus and measures of IQ and verbal memory.

Conclusions

The latter data indicate a loss of a normal structure–function relationship in schizophrenia and might reflect a functional compensation occurring secondary to early neurodevelopmental impairment.

Section snippets

Subjects

The study was approved by the local research ethics committee, and all participants gave written informed consent. Participants were drawn from a larger cohort of the Maudsley Family Study (Frangou et al 1997a, 1997b; Griffiths et al 1998). The subjects who took part in the neuropsychological (Toulopoulou et al 2003a, 2003b) and MRI components of the study (McDonald et al 2002; Schulze et al 2003) are included in the present report.

A total of 201 of the 251 subjects who participated in the

Demographic and clinical characteristics

The demographic characteristics of the sample are shown in Table 1.

Brain volumetric measures and neuropsychological performance in patients and relatives compared with control subjects

As anticipated, overall results were similar to those we reported previously, based on a sample that substantially overlaps with the present one. In terms of the MRI, patients displayed enlargement of the third ventricle (B = .20, 95% confidence interval [CI] = .04, .37, p = .01)and showed nonsignificant trends for reductions in the left temporal lobes (B = −3.7, 95% CI = −7.65, .25, p = .06) and left hippocampi (B = −.09, 95%

Structure–function relationships observed in the combined sample

Our results support previous studies in showing a relationship between brain volume and intelligence in healthy individuals (Andreasen et al 1993; Posthuma et al 2002; Tan et al 1999; Wickett et al 2000) and extend the finding to schizophrenic patients and their healthy relatives. We found a small but significant relationship between estimated full-scale and verbal IQ with whole-brain volume, suggesting, as noted previously (Andreasen et al 1993), that although brain size is not everything, it

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The relationship between volumetric brain changes and cognitive function: A family study on schizophrenia

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Section snippets

Subjects

Demographic and clinical characteristics

Brain volumetric measures and neuropsychological performance in patients and relatives compared with control subjects

Structure–function relationships observed in the combined sample

Schizophr Res

Psychiatry Res

Schizophr Res

Neuroimage

Am J Hum Genet

Psychiatry Res

Biol Psychiatry

Schizophr Res

Psychiatry Res

Neurobiol Aging

Lancet

Schizophr Res

Psychiatry Res

Neuropsychologia

Psychiatry Res

Biol Psychiatry

Psychiatry Res

Intelligence

Schizophr Res

Pers Individual Differences

Cognitive and motor function and the size of the cerebellum in adolescents born very pre-term

Brain

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

Regional brain abnormalities in schizophrenia measured with magnetic-resonance-imaging

JAMA

Intelligence and brain structure in normal individuals

Am J Psychiatry