Pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling MRI study of schizophrenic patients

Arterial spin labeling (ASL) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a novel noninvasive technique that can measure regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF). To our knowledge, few studies have examined rCBF in patients with schizophrenia by ASL-MRI. Here we used pseudo-continuous ASL (pCASL) to examine the structural and functional imaging data in schizophrenic patients, taking the regional cerebral gray matter volume into account. The subjects were 36 patients with schizophrenia and 42 healthy volunteers who underwent 3-tesla MRI, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), and pCASL. We evaluated the gray matter volume imaging, DTI, and pCASL imaging data in a voxel-by-voxel statistical analysis. The schizophrenia patients showed reduced rCBF in the left prefrontal and bilateral occipital cortices compared to the healthy volunteers. There was a significant reduction of gray matter volume in the left inferior frontal cortex in the schizophrenia patients. With respect to the fractional anisotropy (FA) values in the DTI, there were significant FA reductions in the left superior temporal, left external capsule, and left inferior prefrontal regions in the patients compared to the controls. Conclusion: Our pCASL study with partial volume effect correction together with volumetry and DTI data demonstrated hypoactivity in the left prefrontal area beyond structural abnormalities in schizophrenia patients. There were also hypofunction areas in bilateral occipital cortices, although structural abnormalities were not apparent.