H E Hulshoff Pol

..The authors assessed the effects of nutritional deficiency during the first trimester of pregnancy on brain morphology in patients with schizophrenia...

..No deficits were found in odor detection ability. The findings suggest that in human odor discrimination, there is more involvement of cortico-cortical pathways than of thalamo-cortical pathways...

..Since other brain volume measures were comparable between the groups, twin studies can provide reliable estimates of heritabilities in brain volume measures and these can be generalized to the singleton population...

..35). These findings point to a neural network that shares a common genetic origin with human intelligence...

..Whether these changes are dependent on medication use or related to intelligence quotient (IQ) is still debated...

..The study was designed to examine the relative contributions of genetic and nongenetic factors to structural brain abnormalities in schizophrenia and subjects at risk to develop the disorder...

..Moreover, smoking was not associated with brain volume change over time in the healthy subjects. However, extremely heavy smoking may contribute to excessive gray matter volume loss in schizophrenia...

..e. negative, positive, disorganization, mania and depression)...

..These results suggest that the cognitive abnormalities in schizophrenia that may be related to genotype are represented in the domain of executive functioning and to some extent in the domain of sensory-motor functioning...

..Fluctuating asymmetry of the finger ridges was as important as whole brain and left hippocampal volumes in differentiating twins with a high susceptibility to schizophrenia from those with a low susceptibility...

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..This suggests that disintegrated fiber integrity in the connection between frontal and temporo-parietal language areas in the schizophrenia patients is associated with their liability for auditory verbal hallucinations...

..This study investigated the relationship between outcome and structural brain abnormalities in schizophrenia...

..These findings strongly suggest that psychosis contributes to brain volume reductions found in schizophrenia...

..The high heritability estimates that were found indicate that brain volumes may be useful as intermediate phenotypes in behavioral genetic research...

..One of the main challenges for the coming years, however, will be the search for gene-by-environment interactions on the progressive brain changes in schizophrenia...

..Before being able to intervene with therapies and prevent the brain from shrinking, one has to understand the underlying mechanism of the progressive changes in the brains of schizophrenia patients...

..However, it is unknown whether the (progressive) loss of tissue affects the brain globally or whether tissue loss is more prominent in some areas than in others...

..These findings suggest that early dynamic brain volume changes are related to the disease process and predict the longer-term outcome of schizophrenia...

..Information on the correlation of normative reproductive hormone levels with physical development (Tanner stages) during puberty and on the influences of genes and environment on variation in these hormones and Tanner stages is limited...

..A total of 52 twins completed two IQ assessments: nine patients [three monozygotic (MZ) and six dizygotic (DZ)], 10 unaffected co-twins (three MZ and seven DZ) and 33 healthy control twins (21 MZ and 12 DZ)...

..In children who showed the most pronounced white matter growth, fractional anisotropy increased the least and vice-versa. Thus, white matter development in childhood may reflect a process of both expansion and fiber optimization...

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..In conclusion, task duration should be taken into consideration as a factor influencing odor discrimination in aging...

..The findings are discussed in the light of two alternative explanations, namely, a central implicit memory process and a stimulus-level-based change at the peripheral level...

..To critically review and integrate the existing literature on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies of the normally developing brain in childhood and adolescence and discuss the implications for clinical MRI studies...

..Therefore PUFA may be involved in the excessive brain tissue loss reported in schizophrenia...

..Although brain volume changes are found in schizophrenia, only a limited number of structural magnetic resonance imaging studies have exclusively examined antipsychotic-naïve patients...

..No significant correlations were found between the brain volume measures and any of these measures. Gray matter volume at illness onset does not predict outcome after 2 years in recent-onset schizophrenia...

..e., do genes influence brain volume which in turn influences intelligence, or alternatively, do genes influence intelligence which in turn influences brain volume), or the presence or absence of pleiotropy has not been resolved yet...

..To study the influence of increased familial risk for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) on brain morphology...

..One would expect global gray matter to decrease progressively, particularly in first-episode patients, because clinical deterioration is greatest in the early stages of the disease...

..Although structural brain abnormalities, particularly decrements in gray matter volume, are considered important to the pathology of schizophrenia, it is not resolved whether the brain abnormalities become more prominent over time...

..Study of genes involved in the (maintenance) of white matter structures may be particularly fruitful in schizophrenia...

..Higher within-twin pair similarities in monozygotic compared to dizygotic twin pairs, suggests that hypothalamus volume might be partly genetically controlled...

..Moreover, the progression in left frontal density loss appears to be related to an increased number of psychotic episodes, with atypical antipsychotic medication attenuating these changes...

..Our data suggest hippocampal involvement, independent of subcortical white matter lesions, in the neuropathology of early-onset depression...

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..The authors investigated whether current or lifetime alcohol intake is related to volumes of total brain, cerebellum, ventricles, peripheral cerebrospinal fluid, and cerebral gray and white matter in moderate drinkers...

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..We examined monozygotic twins concordant and discordant for schizophrenia to clarify the role of genetic and environmental factors in determining brain abnormalities...

..Identifying structural brain abnormalities under genetic control is of particular importance as these could represent endophenotypes of autism...

..Focal changes in the left anterior hemisphere may therefore be particularly relevant as endophenotype in genetic studies of schizophrenia...

..84 for gray matter, and > or = 0.78 for white matter volume. Calibration of segmentation procedures allows morphologic MRI data acquired at different research sites to be combined reliably in multicenter studies...

..The results confirm that there is global intellectual impairment in schizophrenia patients at the onset of illness but no age-accelerated decline and are consistent with the neurodevelopmental hypothesis of schizophrenia...

..The authors investigated the relationship between depression duration and cerebral gray matter volume in female patients with recurrent major depressive disorder...

..Therefore, we wished to investigate the relationship between age of first depression onset and hippocampal volume, with adjustment for subcortical white matter lesions...

..New techniques such as genome-wide scans may become helpful in the search for genes that are involved in the regulation of human brain volume throughout life...

..As the confounding effects of genetic factors were reduced, the present results may selectively relate to the effects of alcohol intake on focal brain matter...

..To evaluate cerebral abnormalities in childhood idiopathic anatomic megalencephaly (MC) by means of different magnetic resonance (MR) modalities...

..The progressive brain changes present in chronic schizophrenia may represent a continuous pathophysiological process taking place in the brains of these patients that warrants further study...