title: Reduced amygdala and hippocampal volumes in patients with methamphetamine psychosis.
abstract: The similarity between psychotic symptoms in patients with schizophrenia such as hallucinations and delusions and those caused by administration of methamphetamine has been accepted. While the etiology of schizophrenia remains unclear, methamphetamine induced psychosis, which is obviously occurred by methamphetamine administration, had been widely considered as a human pharmaceutical model of exogenous psychosis. Although volume reductions in medial temporal lobe structure in patients with schizophrenia have repeatedly been reported, those in patients with methamphetamine psychosis have not yet been clarified. Magnetic resonance images (MRI) were obtained from 20 patients with methamphetamine psychosis and 20 age, sex, parental socio-economic background, and IQ matched healthy controls. A reliable manual tracing methodology was employed to measure the gray matter volume of the amygdala and the hippocampus from MRIs. Significant gray matter volume reductions of both the amygdala and hippocampus were found bilaterally in the subjects with methamphetamine psychosis compared with the controls. The degree of volume reduction was significantly greater in the amygdala than in hippocampus. While the total gray, white matter and intracranial volumes were also significantly smaller-than-normal in the patients; the regional gray matter volume reductions in these medial temporal structures remained statistically significant even after these global brain volumes being controlled. The prominent volume reduction in amygdala rather than that in hippocampus could be relatively specific characteristics of methamphetamine psychosis, since previous studies have shown significant volume reductions less frequently in amygdala than in hippocampus of the other psychosis such as schizophrenia.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychiatry, Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8655, Japan.
authors.forename: Lina
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Orikabe
authors.forename: Hidenori
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yamasue
authors.forename: Hideyuki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Inoue
authors.forename: Yoichiro
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Takayanagi
authors.forename: Yuriko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Mozue
authors.forename: Yasuhiko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sudo
authors.forename: Tatsuji
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ishii
authors.forename: Masanari
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Itokawa
authors.forename: Michio
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Suzuki
authors.forename: Masayoshi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kurachi
authors.forename: Yuji
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Okazaki
authors.forename: Kiyoto
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kasai
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000679:Amygdala / Q000473:pathology*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001931:Brain Mapping; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D000697:Central Nervous System Stimulants / Q000009:adverse effects*; D005260:Female; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008694:Methamphetamine / Q000009:adverse effects*; D008875:Middle Aged; D011618:Psychotic Disorders / Q000209:etiology* / Q000473:pathology*; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D000697:Central Nervous System Stimulants; D008694:Methamphetamine