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No evidence for astrogliosis in brains of schizophrenic patients. A post‐mortem study
Author(s) -
Peter Falkai,
Honer Wg,
Samuel David,
Bernhard Bogerts,
Catherine Majtenyi,
Bayer Ta
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
neuropathology and applied neurobiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.538
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1365-2990
pISSN - 0305-1846
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-2990.1999.00162.x
Subject(s) - astrogliosis , grey matter , white matter , entorhinal cortex , neuroscience , schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , atrophy , lateral ventricles , pathology , psychology , psychosis , gliosis , medicine , hippocampus , central nervous system , magnetic resonance imaging , psychiatry , radiology
Schizophrenia is clinically and neuropsychologically characterized by severe cognitive and functional impairment suggesting the presence of a neurodegenerative process in the brains of affected individuals. A variety of neuroanatomical changes have been described such as loss and disorientation of neurons in grey and white matter and cortical atrophy. However, the neuropathological basis for schizophrenia is still unclear. In the present study we monitored the density of GFAP‐positive astrocytes in brains of 33 schizophrenic patients and 26 healthy controls. Both grey matter (entorhinal cortex and subiculum) and white matter (premotor cortex, subventricular zone of the third ventricle and next to inferior horn) structures were measured bilaterally. The overall finding was that there is no evidence for increased astrogliosis in brains of schizophrenic patients vs healthy controls. Therefore, degeneration is unlikely to be the main neuropathological mechanism in schizophrenic brains.