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Smaller amygdala subnuclei volume in schizophrenia patients with violent behaviors

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Abstract

To investigate the association between the volume of amygdala subnuclei and violent behaviors in patients with schizophrenia (SCZ). In the present study, we recruited 40 SCZ patients with violent behaviors (VS), 26 SCZ patients without violent behaviors (NVS), and 28 matched healthy controls (HC) who completed T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging. Both the total amygdala and amygdala subnuclei volumes were estimated with FreeSurfer. When comparing the SCZ patients with HC, SCZ patients had a smaller volume of the left basal nucleus (P < 0.05, uncorrected). Further, the VS patients had a smaller volume of the left amygdala central nucleus than the NVS group (P < 0.05, Bonferroni corrected). Our study suggests that a smaller volume of the left amygdala basal nucleus may be a biomarker for SCZ and that a smaller volume of the left central nucleus may be relevant to violence risk in patients with schizophrenia.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr Yingying Tang who helped with the language revisions and Professor Yang Zhi who helped to modify our statistic.

Funding

This study is supported by grants from the Three-Year Action Plan for the Construction of Public Health System in Shanghai [grant number: GWIV-5, PI: Bin Xie]; the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality [grant number 19411969400, PI: Xinyi Cao]; the National Natural Science Foundation of China[grant number 82271924, PI: Bin Xie; grant number 81873909, PI: Qiang Luo]; Quantitative evaluation based strategic research of interventions on relapse of schizophrenia [grant number 19411950800, PI: Bin Xie], Fund for Talents by Shanghai Mental Health Center [grant number 2018-FX-04, PI: Qian Guo], Qihang Foundation of Shanghai Mental Health Center [grant number 2019-QH-01, PI: Hao Hu]. The sponsor had no role in study design, in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data, in the writing of the report, or in the decision to submit the paper for publication.

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Author notes

  1. Hao Hu, Fengju Liu, and Li Liu contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, 200030, China

    Hao Hu, Fengju Liu, Li Liu, Yi Mei, Bin Xie, Yang Shao & Yi Qiao

Authors
  1. Hao Hu
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  2. Fengju Liu
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  3. Li Liu
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  4. Yi Mei
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  5. Bin Xie
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  6. Yang Shao
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  7. Yi Qiao
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Contributions

Yang Shao, and Bin Xie designed the study protocol and supervised the administration of the study. Yi Qiao colleceted the MRI data. Hao Hu did the analysis and wrote the primary manuscript. Fengju Liu, Li Liu and Yi Mei collected the clinical data.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Yi Mei, Bin Xie, Yang Shao or Yi Qiao.

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All study procedures were approved by the Institutional Review Board of Shanghai Mental Health Center, which was in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

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Written informed consents were provided by all the participants.

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All authors consented this paper to be published in Brain imaging and behaviors.

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Hu, H., Liu, F., Liu, L. et al. Smaller amygdala subnuclei volume in schizophrenia patients with violent behaviors. Brain Imaging and Behavior 17, 11–17 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-022-00736-4

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