A Resting State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study On Patients With Early-onset Schizophrenia

Objective: To detect whether and where brain functionalconnectivity exists in resting state of Early-onset patients by usingfunctional magnetic resonance imagingMethods: All Early-onset Schizophrenic patients were diagnosedwith Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, FourthEdition (DSM-Ⅳ) of American Psychiatric Association. NineteenEarly-onset schizophrenic patients and nineteen healthy volunteersunderwent fMRI in resting state. We selected cingulate gyrus as region ofinterest and analyzed the differences in the cingulate gyrus functionalconnectivity pattern between 19 patients with Early-onset schizophrenia(EOS) and 19 matched controls using resting-state fMRI. For exploringthe difference of functional connectivity between the schizophrenic andcontrols, a two-sample t test was performed on the individual in a voxelby voxel manner. Resulted statistical map was set a combined thresholdof p＜0.005 and the number of voxel＞20.Results: Compared to control group, Early-onset Schizophrenia'sfunctional connectivity in resting state is abnormal, including decreasedfunctional connectivity and increased functional connectivity. Theabnormal area is distributed over the brain. The brain area of decreasedfunctional connectivity includes bilateral posterior cerebellar lobes, superior frontal gyrus, middle frontal gyrus, gyrus rectus, hippocampus,cuneus gyrus, fusiform gyrus, middle occipital gyrus, right inferiortemporal gyrus,right middle temporal gyrus and right angular gyrus. Thebrain area of increased functional connectivity includes left middletemporal and left inferior temporal gyrus.Conclusions: The result showed that abnormal cingulate gyrusfunctional connectivity of schizophrenia might exist by using fMRI inresting state. Resting state fMRI had a great significance of the researchof schizophrenia.