A new study led by investigators from Mass General Brigham has identified a unique brain network that links varied patterns of brain atrophy, or shrinkage, associated with schizophrenia. By combining neuroimaging data from multiple studies involving more than 8,000 participants, the research team found a specific connectivity pattern of atrophy that was present across different stages and symptoms of schizophrenia -; and distinct from brain networks associated with other psychiatric disorders. The findings will help to guide a clinical trial that will start recruiting patients soon and will assess brain stimulation sites connected to the schizophrenia network.
Results are published in Nature Mental Health . We looked for common threads among reports on how schizophrenia affects the brain. We found that there's atrophy in places all over the brain, but they're all connected to a single network.
" Ahmed T. Makhlouf, MD, corresponding author of the Center for Brain Circuit Therapeutics and medical director of the Brigham and Women's Hospital Psychosis Program Despite large-scale efforts to resolve the neuroanatomy of schizophrenia, varied results and methodological differences have limited experts' understanding of circuits linked to brain atrophy. "One explanation could be that everyone's actually looking at the same thing from a different vantage point.
If multiple people try to feel different parts of an elephant with their eyes closed, they're going to describe different thin.