Brain shrinkage: early sign of schizophrenia?
The brains of people in the early stages of schizophrenia shrink twice as fast normal, Australian researchers have found, suggesting a possible new way to treat the illness.
The research, led by doctoral student Daqiang Sun and including Dr Geoff Stuart and Associate Professor Chris Pantelis, all from the University of Melbourne, was announced at the Brain Mind conference in Melbourne on Thursday.
Schizophrenia is characterised by hallucinations, delusions, apathy, lack of motivation and limited emotional responses. People with schizophrenia have difficulty in planning, being strategic, holding and manipulating information in their mind, and dealing with new situations.
Shrinkage is a normal part of brain development. Previous research has found that during adolescence - the period when schizophrenia tends to set in - most shrinkage occurs in the frontal lobes. These areas of the brain are involved in abstract thinking and have also been identified as being affected in schizophrenia.
The research by Pantelis and colleagues involved scanning the brains of three groups of young people using magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI.
One group consisted of 24 people who were scanned within three or four weeks of their admission to hospital for schizophrenia. This group was compared with a control group of people without schizophrenia, and with a further group who had suffered schizophrenia for around 10 years. All groups had follow-up brain scans two years after the first scan.
The researchers found that the brains of the first group were shrinking at twice the rate of those without schizophrenia.
"The most dramatic changes - the acceleration in tissue loss - was seen in the first group. This means the most active changes are happening at the beginning of the illness rather than down the track, " Pantelis told ABC Science Online.
The current understanding is that schizophrenia occurs as a result of damage to the nervous system before or around the time of birth. "What we propose is that the story doesn't stop there," said Pantelis. "Given the brain is such a dynamic changing organ, it's unlikely to be the whole story, and our data is now demonstrating there are active changes in the early stages of the illness.
"What we think is happening is that a normal developmental process seems to be accelerated," he added. "And if we can understand what underlies that increase in rate of tissue loss, we might be able to get an understanding of what the processes underlying the disorder might be and that might lead to new treatments."
In an study funded by Australia's National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC) which started this year, the scientists are now investigating pairs of adult twins to see if they can see how genetic factors interact with observed brain changes.
A further NHMRC-funded study will examine how the frontal lobes connect and interact with other areas of the brain in schizophrenia as well as another psychiatric condition known as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
Pantelis described the MRI process used in the research, which relies on the use of magnetic fields, as having "very low" risk.