title: Association between duration of untreated psychosis and brain morphology in schizophrenia within the Northern Finland 1966 Birth Cohort.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Duration of untreated psychosis (DUP) has been linked with poor prognosis and changes in the brain structure in schizophrenia at least at the beginning of the disease, but it is still unknown whether DUP relates to brain morphometry in the longer term. Our aim was to analyze the relation between DUP and the brain structure in schizophrenia in the general population, after several years of illness.
  
  
  METHODS
  Brains of subjects with psychosis from the Northern Finland 1966 Birth Cohort (NFBC 1966) were scanned with MRI during 1999-2001 after an 11-year follow-up. DUP was assessed from medical records and regressed against global and local tissue density measurements. The brain morphometric and the DUP information were available for 46 subjects with DSM-III-R schizophrenia.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The DUP did not correlate with volumes of the total gray or white matter or the cerebrospinal fluid. The length of DUP associated positively with reduced densities of the right limbic area and the right hippocampus.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Long DUP was slightly associated with reductions of gray matter densities in the limbic area and especially the hippocampus after several years follow-up, supporting the hypothesis that, compared to short DUP, long DUP might be a marker of different disease trajectories including subtle morphometric changes.
authors.affiliation: University of Oulu, Institute of Clinical Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, P.O. Box 5000, FIN-90014 Oulu, Finland. mattipen@mail.student.oulu.fi
authors.forename: Matti
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Penttilä
authors.forename: Erika
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Jääskeläinen
authors.forename: Marianne
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Haapea
authors.forename: Päivikki
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Tanskanen
authors.forename: Juha
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Veijola
authors.forename: Khanum
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ridler
authors.forename: Graham K
authors.initials: GK
authors.lastname: Murray
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Barnes
authors.forename: Peter B
authors.initials: PB
authors.lastname: Jones
authors.forename: Matti
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Isohanni
authors.forename: Hannu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Koponen
authors.forename: Jouko
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Miettunen
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology*; D039721:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; D005260:Female; D005387:Finland / Q000453:epidemiology; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D008032:Limbic System / Q000473:pathology; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized; D011618:Psychotic Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000473:pathology*; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000473:pathology*; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D013997:Time Factors