Photo Credit: PeopleImages
The following is a summary of “Estimating Multimodal Structural Brain Variability in Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders: A Worldwide ENIGMA Study,” published in the February 2025r issue of American Journal of Psychiatry by Omlor et al.
Schizophrenia’s clinical diversity links to structural brain variability. How this affects gray and white matter remains unclear.
Researchers conducted a retrospective study to examine brain heterogeneity in schizophrenia across multimodal structural indicators using meta- and mega-analysis.
They analyzed the ENIGMA dataset with MRI-based brain measures from 22 sites, including up to 6,037 individuals. They examined variability and mean values of cortical thickness, surface area, folding index, subcortical volume, and fractional anisotropy in schizophrenia and healthy controls.
The results showed greater variability in cortical thickness, surface area, subcortical volume, and fractional anisotropy in the frontotemporal and subcortical network in schizophrenia. This variability correlated with psychopathological symptoms, and mean structural values were lower. Folding patterns were more uniform, especially in the right caudal anterior cingulate, with no mean differences or disease-related associations.
Investigators found uniform folding in the right caudal anterior cingulate, contrasting with variability in the frontotemporal and subcortical network. They suggested that this uniformity reflected a less flexible genetic-environmental interplay during neurodevelopment.
Source: psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.20230806
