title: Microvessel length density, total length, and length per neuron in five subcortical regions in schizophrenia.
abstract: Recent studies (Prabakaran et al. in Mol Psychiat 9:684-697, 2004; Hanson and Gottesman in BMC Med Genet 6:7, 2005; Harris et al. in PLoS ONE 3:e3964, 2008) have suggested that microvascular abnormalities occur in the brains of patients with schizophrenia. To assess the integrity of the microvasculature in subcortical brain regions in schizophrenia, we investigated the microvessel length density, total microvessel length, and microvessel length per neuron using design-based stereologic methods in the caudate nucleus, putamen, nucleus accumbens, mediodorsal nucleus of the thalamus, and lateral nucleus of the amygdala in both hemispheres of 13 postmortem brains from male patients with schizophrenia and 13 age-matched male controls. A general linear model multivariate analysis of variance with diagnosis and hemisphere as fixed factors and illness duration (patients with schizophrenia) or age (controls), postmortem interval and fixation time as covariates showed no statistically significant differences in the brains from the patients with schizophrenia compared to the controls. These data extend our earlier findings in prefrontal cortex area 9 and anterior cingulate cortex area 24 from the same brains (Kreczmanski et al. in Acta Neuropathol 109:510-518, 2005), that alterations in microvessel length density, total length, and particularly length per neuron cannot be considered characteristic features of schizophrenia. As such, compromised brain metabolism and occurrence of oxidative stress in the brains of patients with schizophrenia are likely caused by other mechanisms such as functional disruption in the coupling of cerebral blood flow to neuronal metabolic needs.
authors.affiliation: Division of Cellular Neuroscience, School for Mental Health and Neurosciences, Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Pawel
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kreczmanski
authors.forename: Helmut
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Heinsen
authors.forename: Valentina
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Mantua
authors.forename: Fritz
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Woltersdorf
authors.forename: Thorsten
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Masson
authors.forename: Norbert
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ulfig
authors.forename: Rainald
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Schmidt-Kastner
authors.forename: Hubert
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Korr
authors.forename: Harry W M
authors.initials: HW
authors.lastname: Steinbusch
authors.forename: Patrick R
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Hof
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Schmitz
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000679:Amygdala / Q000473:pathology; D001344:Autopsy; D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply* / Q000473:pathology*; D002421:Caudate Nucleus / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008297:Male; D020645:Mediodorsal Thalamic Nucleus / Q000473:pathology; D055806:Microvessels / Q000473:pathology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009474:Neurons / Q000473:pathology*; D009714:Nucleus Accumbens / Q000473:pathology; D011699:Putamen / Q000473:pathology; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000473:pathology*; D055815:Young Adult