Dataset Information

Frontotemporoparietal asymmetry and lack of illness awareness in schizophrenia.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Lack of illness awareness or anosognosia occurs in both schizophrenia and right hemisphere lesions due to stroke, dementia, and traumatic brain injury. In the latter conditions, anosognosia is thought to arise from unilateral hemispheric dysfunction or interhemispheric disequilibrium, which provides an anatomical model for exploring illness unawareness in other neuropsychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia.

Methods

Both voxel-based morphometry using Diffeomorphic Anatomical Registration through Exponentiated Lie Algebra (DARTEL) and a deformation-based morphology analysis of hemispheric asymmetry were performed on 52 treated schizophrenia subjects, exploring the relationship between illness awareness and gray matter volume. Analyses included age, gender, and total intracranial volume as covariates.

Results

Hemispheric asymmetry analyses revealed illness unawareness was significantly associated with right < left hemisphere volumes in the anteroinferior temporal lobe (t = 4.83, P = 0.051) using DARTEL, and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (t = 5.80, P = 0.003) and parietal lobe (t = 4.3, P = 0.050) using the deformation-based approach. Trend level associations were identified in the right medial prefrontal cortex (t = 4.49, P = 0.127) using DARTEL. Lack of illness awareness was also strongly associated with reduced total white matter volume (r = 0.401, P < 0.01) and illness severity (r = 0.559, P < 0.01).

Conclusion

These results suggest a relationship between anosognosia and hemispheric asymmetry in schizophrenia, supporting previous volume-based MRI studies in schizophrenia that found a relationship between illness unawareness and reduced right hemisphere gray matter volume. Functional imaging studies are required to examine the neural mechanisms contributing to these structural observations.

SUBMITTER: Gerretsen P

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6870294 | biostudies-literature | 2013 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Frontotemporoparietal asymmetry and lack of illness awareness in schizophrenia.

Gerretsen Philip P Chakravarty M Mallar MM Mamo David D Menon Mahesh M Pollock Bruce G BG Rajji Tarek K TK Graff-Guerrero Ariel A

Human brain mapping 20120103 5

<h4>Introduction</h4>Lack of illness awareness or anosognosia occurs in both schizophrenia and right hemisphere lesions due to stroke, dementia, and traumatic brain injury. In the latter conditions, anosognosia is thought to arise from unilateral hemispheric dysfunction or interhemispheric disequilibrium, which provides an anatomical model for exploring illness unawareness in other neuropsychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia.<h4>Methods</h4>Both voxel-based morphometry using Diffeomorphic ...[more]

PMID: 22213454

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Dataset Information

Frontotemporoparietal asymmetry and lack of illness awareness in schizophrenia.

Introduction

Methods

Results

Conclusion

Publications

Frontotemporoparietal asymmetry and lack of illness awareness in schizophrenia.

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