A diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging study of frontal cortex connections in very-late-onset schizophrenia-like psychosis.
OBJECTIVE
Onset of psychosis after the age of 60 may be associated with structural abnormalities within cerebral white matter. The authors looked within white-matter tracts, which mediate connectivity of the frontal lobes, in psychotic patients for evidence of loss of fiber integrity consistent with degenerative damage.


METHODS
Fourteen patients with very-late-onset schizophrenia-like psychosis and an age-matched control group underwent diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging. Tract maps were constructed for each subject from the imaging data, and measurements of fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity were made within the uncinate, superior longitudinal, and inferior occipito-frontal fasciculi, and the cingulum.


RESULTS
There were no significant differences in fractional anisotropy, a measure of the ordering of axons within fiber tracts, nor in mean diffusivity, an orientationally-averaged measure of the bulk diffusivity within each voxel, between patients and control subjects.


CONCLUSIONS
The lack of difference in fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity measures between patients and controls argues against the presence of structural abnormalities within these tracts and the notion that a focal white-matter abnormality within the tracts investigated underpins the onset of psychosis.
Jones
Derek K
DK
Section on Tissue Biophysics and Biomimetics, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development/NIH, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
Catani
Marco
M
Pierpaoli
Carlo
C
Reeves
Suzanne J
SJ
Shergill
Sukhwinder S
SS
O'Sullivan
Michael
M
Maguire
Philip
P
Horsfield
Mark A
MA
Simmons
Andrew
A
Williams
Steven C R
SC
Howard
Robert J
RJ
D017668:Age of Onset; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D038524:Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011618:Psychotic Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000473:pathology*; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000473:pathology*