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White Matter Pathology in Schizophrenia

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Neuroimaging in Schizophrenia

Abstract

Significant effort has been devoted to characterizing white matter pathology in patients with schizophrenia and its impact on brain connectivity (Samartzis et al., J Neuroimaging 24(2):101–10, 2014; Fusar-Poli et al., Neurosci Biobehav Rev 37(8):1680–91, 2013; Bora et al., Schizophr Res 127(1):46–57, 2011). This is particularly important in light of the disconnection hypothesis—a key etiological theory of schizophrenia suggesting that symptoms arise from a failure of integration between distinct brain regions (Friston, Schizophr Res 30(2):115–25, 1998). In this chapter, we focus on neuroimaging evidence demonstrating structural white matter alterations in schizophrenia. Key questions addressed include: what methods are sensitive to the pathophysiology of schizophrenia? What is the evidence that white matter pathology emerges prior to or near to the onset of psychosis? Is the trajectory of white matter pathology stable or, alternatively, a dynamic process, with progressive changes evident over the course of illness? What are the limitations of these studies? How does neuroimaging evidence relate to micro- and meso-structural white matter findings?

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Psychiatry Neuroimaging Laboratory, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Maria A. Di Biase

  2. Department of Psychiatry, Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre, The University of Melbourne and Melbourne Health, Carlton South, VIC, Australia

    Maria A. Di Biase, Christos Pantelis & Andrew Zalesky

  3. Department of Psychiatry, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia

    Maria A. Di Biase, Christos Pantelis & Andrew Zalesky

  4. Florey Institute for Neuroscience and Mental Health, Parkville, VIC, Australia

    Christos Pantelis

  5. North Western Mental Health, Melbourne Health, Parkville, VIC, Australia

    Christos Pantelis

  6. Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Centre for Neural Engineering, University of Melbourne, Carlton South, VIC, Australia

    Christos Pantelis

  7. Departments of Psychiatry and Biomedical Engineering, The University of Melbourne and Melbourne Health, Carlton South, VIC, Australia

    Andrew Zalesky

  8. Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia

    Andrew Zalesky

Authors
  1. Maria A. Di Biase
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  2. Christos Pantelis
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  3. Andrew Zalesky
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Correspondence to Christos Pantelis .

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  1. Department of Psychiatry and Radiology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Marek Kubicki

  2. Department of Psychiatry and Radiology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Martha E. Shenton

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Di Biase, M.A., Pantelis, C., Zalesky, A. (2020). White Matter Pathology in Schizophrenia. In: Kubicki, M., Shenton, M. (eds) Neuroimaging in Schizophrenia . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35206-6_4

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