SHORT REPORTS |
Department of Psychiatry, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland
Harris Birthright Research Centre for Foetal Medicine, King's College Hospital, London
Divison of Psychological Medicine, Institute of Psychiatry, London
Section of Perinatal Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, London
Division of Asthma, Allergy and Lung Biology, King's College London
Harris Birthright Research Centre for Foetal Medicine, King's College Hospital, London, UK
Correspondence: Dr Mary Clarke, Department of Psychiatry, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, RCSI Education and Research Centre, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin 9, Ireland. Email: maryclarke{at}rcsi.ie
Funding detailed in Acknowledgements.
Cerebral ventricular enlargement and reduced cortical volume are correlates of chronic schizophrenia. We investigated whether genetic risk for psychosisis related to differences in foetal brain development as measured by prenatal ultrasonography. Routine foetal cerebral measures at 1923 weeks of gestation were compared between the offspring of 35 women with a history of psychosis and 105 control women matched for gestational age. Overall, no significant differences were found between the high-risk and control groups. There was a non-significant trend in the adjusted analysis towards increased lateral ventricular width in the offspring of mothers with psychosis.
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