title: Childhood onset schizophrenia: cortical brain abnormalities as young adults.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Childhood onset schizophrenia (COS) is a rare but severe form of the adult onset disorder. While structural brain imaging studies show robust, widespread, and progressive gray matter loss in COS during adolescence, there have been no longitudinal studies of sufficient duration to examine comparability with the more common adult onset illness.
  
  
  METHODS
  Neuro-anatomic magnetic resonance scans were obtained prospectively from ages 7 through 26 in 70 children diagnosed with COS and age and sex matched healthy controls. Cortical thickness was measured at 40,962 points across the cerebral hemispheres using a novel, fully automated, validated method. Patterns of patient-control differences in cortical development were compared over a 19-year period.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Throughout the age range, the COS group had significantly smaller mean cortical thickness compared to controls. However, the COS brain developmental trajectory appeared to normalize in posterior (parietal) regions, and remained divergent in the anterior regions (frontal and temporal) regions, and the pattern of loss became more like that seen in adults.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Cortical thickness loss in COS appears to localize with age to prefrontal and temporal regions that are seen for both medication naïve and medicated adult onset patients.
authors.affiliation: Child Psychiatry Branch, NIMH/NIH, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA. greenstd@mail.nih.gov
authors.forename: Deanna
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Greenstein
authors.forename: Jason
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lerch
authors.forename: Philip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Shaw
authors.forename: Liv
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Clasen
authors.forename: Jay
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Giedd
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gochman
authors.forename: Judith
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rapoport
authors.forename: Nitin
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Gogtay
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D014150:Antipsychotic Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000002:abnormalities*; D002648:Child; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology; D003710:Demography; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000002:abnormalities; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000002:abnormalities; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012561:Schizophrenia, Childhood / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000453:epidemiology; D012720:Severity of Illness Index
chemical_list: D014150:Antipsychotic Agents