Abstract
A similar neuropathology could be one reason for the similarities of the psychosis in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) to schizophrenia. We investigated whether these two patient groups show comparable increases of ventricular volumes indicating a common neuropathology differentiating them from non-psychotic patients with TLE and from normal controls. The volumes of the lateral ventricles of 9 patients with TLE and psychosis were measured on high resolution MRI brain scans and compared to the corresponding values of 9 patients with TLE and no psychosis, 9 schizophrenics and 9 normal controls, matched on age, sex and duration of epilepsy, respectively. The schizophrenic patients showed significantly larger volumes than the normal controls, while the values of both TLE groups lay in between, neither significantly different from each other nor from the two other groups. We found no evidence that patients with TLE and psychosis show an increase of ventricular volumes similar to the one observed in schizophrenic patients. In so far as the neuropathology underlying ventricular enlargement in schizophrenia is related to psychopathology, this study does not support the notion that schizophrenia-like symptoms in patients with TLE are based on a similar neuropathology.
Article PDF
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Umbricht, D., Wu, H., Barr, W. et al. Ventricular Volumes In Patients With Temporal Lobe Epilepsy And Psychosis. Neuropsychopharmacol 11, 287 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.npp.1380223
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.npp.1380223