Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota
Department of Radiology, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Minnesota
Imaging Research Center, University of California, Davis, California
Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA
Correspondence: Angus W. MacDonald, III, Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, N218 Elliott Hall, 75 East River Road, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA. Tel: +1 612 624 3813; fax: +1 612 625 6668; email: angus{at}umn.edu
Funding detailed in Acknowledgements.
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Aims To measure frontal and temporal sulcal cortical thickness, surface area and volume in the non-psychotic relatives of patients with schizophrenia as a potential vulnerability indicator for the disorder.
Method An automated parcellation method was used to measure the superior frontal, inferior frontal, cingulate, superior temporal and inferior temporal sulci in the relatives of patients (n=19) and controls (n=22).
Results Compared with controls, relatives had reversed hemispheric asymmetry in their cingulate sulcal thickness and a bilateral reduction in their superior temporal sulcal thickness.
Conclusions Cingulate and superior temporal sulcal thickness abnormalities may reflect neural abnormalities associated with the genetic liability to schizophrenia. Cortical thinning in these regions suggests that liability genes affect the dendrites, synapses or myelination process during the neurodevelopment of the cortical mantle.
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Image acquisition and processing
Spoiled gradient recalled magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans were
acquired in the axial plane using a GE Signa (General Electric, Milwaukee,
Wisconsin, USA) 3 T magnetic resonance scanner (0.9375 mm x 0.9375 mm
x 1.5 mm voxel size, 124 slices). Whole-brain volumes were extracted
using McStrip, an automated, consensus-based stripping algorithm
(Rehm et al, 2004).
Whole-brain volumes were intensity-corrected using non-parametric nonuniform
intensity normalisation (N3) to improve the accuracy of tissue classification
and cortical surface extraction (Sled
et al, 1998). An automatic algorithm labelled the left
and right hemispheres, cerebellum and brain-stem
(Rehm et al, 2005).
Defects were manually edited where necessary. These stripped,
intensity-corrected brain images and grossly subdivided volumes were used in
the subsequent steps.
Surface extraction and cortical parcellation were conducted using FreeSurfer version 1.3 (Fischl et al, 2004) (DS1, see data supplement to online version of this paper). Briefly, the stripped, intensity-corrected, subdivided volume was segmented to classify white matter and to approximate the grey–white matter boundary for each cortical hemisphere, from which a topologically correct grey-white matter boundary surface triangulation was generated (Dale et al, 1999; Fischl et al, 2001). Subsequently, a pial surface was generated using a deformable surface algorithm (Fischl & Dale, 2000). All surfaces were visually inspected and defects leading to major topological errors were manually corrected. The grey–white boundary surface was inflated and individual differences in curvature were normalised. For each brain examined the inflated surface was morphed into a sphere and registered to an average spherical surface that optimally aligned sulci and gyri across participants (Fischl et al, 1999a,b). Surfaces were successfully extracted for 41 participants (22 controls and 19 relatives) using standard parameters.
Parcellation for each individual's left and right hemisphere surface was transmitted from the parcellation of the reference spherical surface to which they were aligned. Each parcellated region was mapped back onto each individual brain's inflated surface by inverting the algorithm that morphed the inflated surface to the average spherical surface representation (Kuperberg et al, 2003; Fischl et al, 2004). Eighty-five parcellation units were provided by FreeSurfer, based on the conventions of Duvernoy (1991).
Thicknesses were calculated using Free-Surfer software; they were computed for each vertex in the triangulated surfaces by finding the point on the white-matter surface that was closest to a given point of the pial surface (and vice versa) and the average was taken between these two values. Surface areas were calculated for both the white–grey boundary and pial surface using the formula of Heron (Gellert et al, 1975). The average of the two surface areas at each triangle was computed and was used in analyses to simulate an intermediate cortical surface. Grey-matter volumes were calculated by constructing a closed mesh joining a pair of linked triangles and computing the enclosed volume (Eberly et al, 1991). Individual triangle volumes were aggregated to compute cortical grey-matter volume for each region of interest. This methodology has been extensively validated (Kuperberg et al, 2003; Fischl et al, 2004). A trained rater manually traced regions of interest on ten white–grey boundary inflated surfaces. An index of similarity between the automated and hand-drawn regions was calculated. This index was defined as the ratio of twice the common area between the two methods relative to the sum of the individual areas; a value above 0.7 was considered excellent correspondence (Zijdenbos et al, 1994). All three sulcal regions had acceptable correspondence (superior frontal 0.71, cingulate 0.82, superior temporal, 0.87).
Analyses
All sulcal regions of interest were assessed using mixed-model analysis of
covariance (ANCOVA), with hemisphere (left, right) entered as an
intra-individual effect and group (control, relative) entered as an
inter-individual effect. Age, gender and average cortical thickness were
entered as covariates when analysing regional thicknesses; age, gender and
total cortical surface area were entered as covariates when analysing regional
surface areas; and age, gender and intracranial volume were entered as
covariates when analysing regional volumes. All analyses were also conducted
with education as an additional covariate; as this did not affect the results,
the findings reported below do not include it as a covariate.
Greenhouse–Geisser correction is reported for the mixed-model ANCOVAs.
These planned comparisons were set to a significance threshold of
P=0.05. Because of concerns related to multiple comparisons, effect
sizes are reported as a supplemental indicator to significance values. Partial
eta-squared effect sizes are presented: 0.01 is considered a small effect,
0.06 is considered a medium effect and 0.14 is considered a large effect
(Stevens, 2002).
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View this table: [in a new window] |
Table 1 Demographic characteristics of the sample
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MRI analyses
Frontal sulcal measures
Planned comparisons of middle and inferior frontal sulcal thickness,
surface area and volume revealed no significant main effect of group or
hemisphere by group interactions (all P>0.2).
Cingulate sulcal measures
A significant hemisphere by group interaction was found in cingulate sulcal
thickness (F=5.50, d.f.=1,36, P=0.03; partial
2=0.13), with the relatives group having a reversal in
hemispheric asymmetry pattern compared with the control group. The control
group had thicker sulci in the left hemisphere, whereas those in the relatives
group had thicker sulci in the right hemisphere
(Fig. 1,
Table 2). There were also
significant effects of age (F=7.26, d.f.=1,36, P=0.01) and
average cortical thickness (F=23.85, d.f.=1,36, P<0.001)
covariates. No significant difference was found in surface area or volume (all
P>0.1).
![]() View larger version (40K): [in a new window] [as a PowerPoint slide] |
Fig. 1 Mean z scores for the thicknesses that demonstrated a significant
difference between the control group (n=22) and the relatives group
(n=19). Left-hand panel, superior temporal sulcal thickness;
right-hand panel, cingulate sulcal thickness. Mean scores for the relatives
group for the left and right hemispheres are compared with the control group
score (mean=0); bars indicate standard error of the mean.
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View this table: [in a new window] |
Table 2 Thickness, surface area and grey-matter volume (raw values; mean, s.d.)
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Temporal sulcal measures
A significant effect of group was found in the superior temporal sulcal
thickness (F=8.17, d.f.=1,36, P=0.007; partial
2=0.19) with the relatives group having 2.4% bilateral
decrease (Fig. 1,
Table 2). There was also a
significant effect of average cortical thickness (F=119.87,
d.f.=1,36, P<0.001) covariate. No significant difference was found
in surface area or volume (all P>0.1). Planned comparisons of
inferior temporal sulci thickness, surface area and volume revealed no
significant main effect of group or hemisphere by group interactions
(P>0.1).
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Consistent with previous findings of cingulate cortex abnormalities, we found that cingulate sulcal thickness was abnormal among the relatives, who were observed to have a reversed asymmetry pattern with the right hemisphere being thicker than the left. Similar to our findings, studies have demonstrated that controls had more leftward asymmetry in their paracingulate sulci compared with patients with schizophrenia (Yücel et al, 2002; Le Provost et al, 2003), whereas the patients with schizophrenia had more rightward asymmetry in their paracingulate sulci (Le Provost et al, 2003). Compared with a control group, individuals with a high risk of developing schizophrenia tended to have a significantly more interrupted left cingulate sulcus and less well-developed left paracingulate sulcus (Yücel et al, 2003). Recent MRI studies of cortical thickness have found the cingulate cortex to be thinner in people with first-episode schizophrenia (Narr et al, 2005) and specifically the anterior cingulate gyri to be thinner in patients with chronic schizophrenia (Kuperberg et al, 2003). A study assessing the gyrification index, defined as the ratio of the length of the contour of the gyri and sulci compared with the length connecting the gyral surface, demonstrated significant reductions in posterior cingulate cortical folding in schizophrenia (Wheeler & Harper, 2007). Consistent with neuroimaging results of cortical thinning, post-mortem work on the anterior cingulate cortex of people with schizophrenia has demonstrated glial cell loss and changes in cell size and density (Benes et al, 1991, 2001; Stark et al, 2004). However, a greater number of axons in layer II and sub-lamina IIIA has also been reported (Benes et al, 1986). The cingulate gyri in the current sample have also been noted to be thinner and have reduced surface area and volume in the relatives group (Goghari et al, 2007). Taken together these results suggest neurodevelopmental abnormalities in this limbic region, which has an essential role in affective, cognitive and motor control systems (Vogt et al, 1992).
Consistent with temporal cortex abnormalities reported in the literature, we found a bilateral reduction in thickness in the superior temporal sulci in the non-psychotic relatives of patients with schizophrenia compared with controls. Consistent with this finding, the cell density in a variety of temporal lobe sulci was reduced in schizophrenia (Chance et al, 2004). A study of male patients with chronic schizophrenia demonstrated faster cerebrospinal fluid volume expansion in posterior superior temporal sulci compared with controls over a span of 4 years (Mathalon et al, 2001). The superior temporal sulci border both the superior and middle temporal gyri. Previously in the current sample, only surface area and not thickness was decreased in the superior temporal gyri (Goghari et al, 2007). In addition, the left middle temporal and bilateral parahippocampal gyri were greater in surface area and volume in the relatives group. Superior temporal lobe gyrus volume has also been shown to be reduced in the young offspring of patients (Rajarethinam et al, 2004). Together, these findings suggest that the temporal sulci and gyri are globally affected. Thus, the temporal cortex may be an important indicator of the schizophrenia diathesis.
We failed to find any significant structural differences in the middle and
inferior frontal regions, although functional MRI data collected on the same
sample of relatives and controls suggest abnormalities in prefrontal activity
(Brodmann areas 9, 8 and 6) (MacDonald
et al, 2006). In contrast to our structural findings,
Falkai et al (2007)
conducted a gyrification study of patients with schizophrenia and unaffected
relatives and found both groups to have a higher frontal gyrification index
than a control group. Findings have been inconsistent, however, with one study
finding that high-risk individuals who later developed schizophrenia had a
higher gyrification index in the right frontal lobe
(Harris et al,
2004b), and another study finding that high-risk
individuals had no difference in the right frontal lobe, but rather a reduced
gyrification index in the left frontal lobe
(Jou et al, 2005).
These discrepancies in findings may be sample-specific or due to
methodological differences. Our sample size is modest and might not have been
sufficient to detect smaller group differences. However, in our sample, the
effect sizes indicated the magnitude of the difference between the groups was
small: superior and inferior frontal sulcal thickness, partial
2=0–0.06; surface area, partial
2=0.01–0.03; volume, partial
2=0–0.01.
Limitations
We attempted to control for multiple comparisons by restricting our
analyses to five planned comparisons of regions consistently associated with
schizophrenia. There is a need for caution when interpreting results that
derive from multiple comparisons. However, this caution has to be balanced by
the need to be sensitive to group differences. Our approach to this balance
was to report effect sizes, which reflect the magnitude of the difference
between groups regardless of sample size. Our results indicated the
abnormality in the cingulate sulcal thickness (effect size 0.13) and the
bilateral reduction in superior temporal sulci (effect size 0.19) are both
noteworthy findings. This study compared the non-psychotic relatives of
patients with schizophrenia and controls. It would have been useful in
addition to have collected patient pedigree information to quantify genetic
liability on a continuum. We used an automated method to measure cortical
thickness and to parcellate the cerebral cortex. The accuracy of the thickness
values depends on the accuracy of the grey–white segmentation and
therefore can be influenced by various artefacts. However, we followed
validated data processing procedures provided by the FreeSurfer manual and all
analyses were performed in consultation with a magnetic resonance physicist
(K.R.).
Implications
Sulci and gyri are thought to form together, with gyri forming between
densely connected regions and sulci forming between weakly connected regions
(Hilgetag & Barbas, 2006).
In addition, structural differences exist between the gyri and sulci, with
gyri having significantly greater number of neurons in deep layers. The
process of cortical folding can lead to differences in cell and dendrite
morphology and the layout of cortical blood vessels in the gyri and sulci,
thereby potentially resulting in further differences in functioning
(Hilgetag & Barbas, 2005).
Assessing gyri and sulci may reflect a further way to index neurodevelopmental
abnormalities of cortical development in schizophrenia.
In this study we found the cingulate and the superior temporal sulci to be the most affected, and these may serve as useful structural endophenotypes relating the pathology to the aetiology. In addition, our results indicate that thickness, surface area and volume are differentially affected in the sulci and gyri. Combined with our previous gyral findings, these sulcal results suggest that cortical thickness abnormalities are more prominent in the sulci and that surface area abnormalities are more prominent in the gyri. A number of factors could change the formation of sulci and gyri. Differential growth of cortical regions could displace adjacent gyral regions. Alternatively, growth of brain regions could affect the trajectories of migrating axons, affecting sulci and gyri formation patterns. Lastly, time course disruption of interhemispheric and intercortical white-matter tracts, especially of the thalamocortical fibre system, might affect sulci and gyri formation patterns, even in distant areas (Welker, 1990). The schizophrenia diathesis most likely has an impact on all these processes, thereby having a complex effect on the neurodevelopment of cortical topography.
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