Schizophrenia is a complex disorder that affects perception, thought and emotions. A new study conducted by the University of Zurich He has revealed that these differences in symptoms are also reflected in the structure of patients’ brain.
The symptoms of schizophrenia vary significantly from one person to another. While some patients mainly have alterations in perception, others have greater cognitive impairment. “In this sense, there is not a single schizophrenia, but many, each with different neurobiological profiles,” explains Wolfgang Omelor, the first author of the study that is published in ‘American Journal of Psychiatry‘.
To address these differences, researchers suggest the need for a precision medicine approach, with therapies adapted to each neurobiological profile. “This requires methods that examine both individual differences and similarities at the neurobiological level,” adds Omelor.
The study analyzed the variability in the brain structure of patients with schizophrenia. Different characteristics were evaluated, such as the thickness and surface of the cerebral cortex, the folding pattern and the volume of deeper brain regions.
The data comes from the project ENIGMAan international initiative that brings together brain images of more than 6,000 people in 22 countries. Thanks to this large database, researchers were able to compare the brain structure of thousands of patients with schizophrenia with that of healthy individuals, achieving a precise and reliable evaluation of structural differences.
The results suggest that variations in the structure of the brain could be related to differences in symptoms between patients. However, a common feature was also found in all of them: uniformity in brain folding in the middle-fontal zone, which suggests a specific development pattern in people with schizophrenia.
Since the cerebral folding process is completed in early childhood, the findings indicate that the development of the brain at this stage is less flexible in patients with schizophrenia, especially in the areas responsible for integrating thought and emotions.
Neurobiology
“These discoveries expand our understanding of the neurobiological base of schizophrenia,” says Philipp Homan, a professor at the University of Zurich and main author of the study. “While uniformity in brain folding can point out possible mechanisms for the development of the disease, regions with the greatest structural variability could be key to designing personalized treatments in the future.”
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