- Understand that this study suggests that reduction over time in the density of gray matter in the inferior temporal gyrus signals a high likelihood that a person with a family history of schizophrenia will go on to develop the disease.
EDINBURGH, Scotland, Dec. 7 -- For a person at high risk for schizophrenia, a reduction in gray matter in the temporal lobes over time suggests a high likelihood that psychosis will develop, reported investigators here.
In a study of 65 young men and women with a family history of schizophrenia, those with changes over time in the inferior temporal gyrus had a 10-fold greater risk for developing schizophrenia than the cohort as a whole, reported Dominic E. Job, M.D., of the University of Edinburgh, and colleagues.
"Changes in gray matter could be used as part of a predictive test for schizophrenia in people at enhanced risk for familial reasons, particularly for positive predictive power, in combination with other clinical and cognitive predictive measures, several of which are strong negative predictors." the investigators wrote in the Dec. 7 issue of the open-access journal BMC Medicine.
The investigators studied a cohort of 34 men and 31 women, age 21.4 + 2.7, who took part in the Edinburgh High Risk study. Investigators in the prospective study have examined over 10 years the mental state and brain structure of more than 150 young men and women with a history of familial schizophrenia.
