Elsevier

Schizophrenia Research

Volume 230, April 2021, Pages 111-113
Schizophrenia Research

Intact thalamic microstructure in asymptomatic relatives of schizophrenia patients with high genetic loading

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.schres.2020.07.008Get rights and content

Abstract

Background

Disrupted thalamic connectivity system, which encompasses the deficits in the thalamus and thalamocortical connectivity, is regarded to contribute to the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. Recent reports suggest the possible genetic contribution to the disrupted thalamo-prefrontal connectivity, however, research on elucidating thalamic connectivity system components, specifically the thalamic nuclei, associated with the genetic predisposition to schizophrenia has been limited. Here, we investigated the genetic aspects of thalamic nuclei-specific microstructural integrities in schizophrenia.

Methods

A total of 34 asymptomatic relatives of schizophrenia patients with high genetic loading and 33 healthy control subjects underwent diffusion tensor imaging, diffusion kurtosis imaging, and T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging. The thalamus was segmented via a connectivity-based segmentation method using the region-of-interest masks. The microstructural integrity of each thalamic nucleus, measured by averages of the diffusion kurtosis values, was then compared between the groups.

Results

The volumetric and mean kurtosis values of the thalamic nuclei were intact in asymptomatic relatives of schizophrenia patients with high genetic loading.

Conclusions

Our results revealed that, in the thalamic connectivity system, the genetics may hold different weights of effects on different components, and that more is given on the thalamo-prefrontal connectivity than on the thalamus. Further, the current results may add further evidence to the current literature that thalamic nuclei microstructural abnormalities present in psychosis may have state marker characteristics.

Section snippets

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare they have no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the participants for taking part in this study.

Contributors

WJH contributed to performing the literature search, analyzing the data and drafting the manuscript. KIKC contributed to analysis plan, and to editing the manuscript. YBK contributed to analysis plan, and to editing the manuscript. JL contributed to analysis plan. MK contributed to analysis plan, and to editing the manuscript. TYL contributed to analysis plan, and to editing the manuscript. JSK contributed to the study design, and to editing the manuscript.

Role of the funding source

This research was supported by the Brain Research Program, the Basic Research Laboratory Program, and the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning (grant nos. 2017M3C7A1029610, 2018R1A4A1025891, and 2019R1A2B5B03100844).

Cited by (1)

View full text