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Progressive pathology is functionally linked to the domains of language and emotion: meta-analysis of brain structure changes in schizophrenia patients

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European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Schizophrenia is a neuropsychiatric disorder entailing progressive psychotic, cognitive and affective symptoms. Several imaging studies identified brain structure abnormalities in schizophrenia patients, particularly in fronto-temporal regions and evidence for progressive anatomical changes. Here, we synthesised these findings by quantitative coordinate-based meta-analysis, assessing regions of consistently reported brain structure changes, their physiological functions and the correlation of their likelihood with disease duration. The meta-analysis revealed four significant clusters of convergent grey matter reduction, while one cluster indicated higher grey matter values in patients. A voxel-wise analysis revealed a correlation between grey matter reduction and disease duration in the left anterior insula. Functional characterisation revealed significant association with reward, affective processing and language functions. The current analysis allowed the identification of consistent morphometric changes across a large sample of studies in regions that are associated with neurophysiological functions that are altered as hallmarks of schizophrenia psychopathology. The observation that the location of presumably progressive pathology is functionally linked to language and emotion is well in line with increasing deficits in these domains with disease progression in schizophrenia.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

This supplement was not sponsored by outside commercial interests. It was funded by the German Association for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (DGPPN).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, RWTH Aachen University, Pauwelsstrasse 30, D-52074, Aachen, Germany

    Thomas Nickl-Jockschat, Frank Schneider, Alena D. Pagel & Simon B. Eickhoff

  2. JARA—Translational Brain Medicine, Aachen/Juelich, Germany

    Thomas Nickl-Jockschat, Frank Schneider & Simon B. Eickhoff

  3. Research Imaging Institute, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, TX, USA

    Angie R. Laird & Peter T. Fox

  4. Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine-2, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Juelich, Germany

    Simon B. Eickhoff

Authors
  1. Thomas Nickl-Jockschat
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  2. Frank Schneider
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  3. Alena D. Pagel
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  4. Angie R. Laird
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  5. Peter T. Fox
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  6. Simon B. Eickhoff
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Correspondence to Thomas Nickl-Jockschat.

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Nickl-Jockschat, T., Schneider, F., Pagel, A.D. et al. Progressive pathology is functionally linked to the domains of language and emotion: meta-analysis of brain structure changes in schizophrenia patients. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci 261 (Suppl 2), 166 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-011-0249-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-011-0249-8

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