Comparison of volumes of subcortical regions in schizophrenia patients and healthy controls using MRI

As a crucial mental disorder, schizophrenia affects one percent of the world population. Diagnosis of this disorder is now based mainly on the clinical symptoms. As the first study in Iran, we investigate the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images of patients with schizophrenia to investigate the imaging biomarkers for helping the diagnosis of this disorder. In this study, we have analyzed MRI images from 12 schizophrenia patients and 12 healthy controls. We have examined the volume of the subcortical brain regions using a fully-automated whole brain segmentation technique. Volumes of these regions were compared between the groups of patient and control. The results showed significant volume reduction in hippocampus, amygdala, thalamus, cerebellum and brain stem between two groups (p-value ≤0.05). Detection of these abnormalities helps us diagnosis of this disorder and hopefully find the appropriate medication for treatment. Also the results of this study are consistent with several reported volumetric differences associated with schizophrenia.