title: Regional cerebral blood flow in late-onset schizophrenia: a SPECT study using 99mTc-ECD.
abstract: Progressive disability in schizophrenia has been considered to be associated with onset-age. The objective of this study was to evaluate age onset-related degeneration in rCBF in patients with schizophrenia. We evaluated characteristic changes in brain perfusion by age, gender, medication and clinical symptoms in medicated patients with early-onset (EOS: developed at younger than 40 years old: n = 44) and late-onset (LOS: developed at older than 40 years old: n = 19) schizophrenia and control subjects matched for age and gender (n = 37) using statistical parametric mapping (SPM8) applied to 99mTc-ECD SPECT. We performed SPECT with 99mTc-ECD on the brains of subjects. A voxel-by-voxel group analysis was performed using SPM 8 and ANOVA. rCBF in EOS was found to be reduced in the precentral and inferior frontal gyri; on the other hand, rCBF was reduced in the bilateral postcentral gyrus in LOS. This study revealed a significant difference in brain perfusion between EOS and LOS. The present study might suggest that the characteristic changes in rCBF are related to onset-age in schizophrenia.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Shimane University Faculty of Medicine, Izumo, Japan. rei@med.shimane-u.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Rei
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Wake
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Shimane University Faculty of Medicine, Izumo, Japan.
authors.forename: Tsuyoshi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Miyaoka
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Shimane University Faculty of Medicine, Izumo, Japan.
authors.forename: Tomoko
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Araki
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Shimane University Faculty of Medicine, Izumo, Japan.
authors.forename: Kazunori
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kawakami
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Shimane University Faculty of Medicine, Izumo, Japan.
authors.forename: Motohide
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Furuya
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Shimane University Faculty of Medicine, Izumo, Japan.
authors.forename: Erlyn
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Limoa
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Shimane University Faculty of Medicine, Izumo, Japan.
authors.forename: Sadayuki
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hashioka
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Shimane University Faculty of Medicine, Izumo, Japan.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Horiguchi
keywords: Late-onset; Neuroimaging; SPECT; Schizophrenia