Table 1.
Demographic characteristics of brain samples*† obtained from the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center
| Patient cohort |
|||
| Characteristic | NPS (n = 24) | SZP (n = 13) | BP (n = 17) |
| Male/female | 17/7 | 10/3 | 10/7 |
| Hemisphere (left/right) | 9/15 | 4/9 | 9/8 |
| Age (y) | 60 ± 17 | 56 ± 19 | 60 ± 18 |
| Postmortem interval (h) | 20 ± 6.1 | 22 ± 5.0 | 20 ± 9.8 |
| Fixation days × 103 | 1.8 ± 0.6 | 2.2 ± 0.4 | 2.0 ± 0.6 |
| Brain pH | 6.4 ± 0.2 | 6.4 ± 0.2 | 6.5 ± 0.2 |
| Age of illness onset (y) | — | 23 ± 11.1 | 37 ± 16 |
| Duration of illness (y) | — | 33 ± 19 | 26 ± 18 |
| Suicide | 0 | 1 (8) | 2 (12) |
| Abuse or dependence | 0 | 6 (47) | 8 (47) |
| CNS medications‡ | |||
| Atypical antipsychotics | — | 5 (46) | 6 (43) |
| Typical antipsychotics | — | 5 (46) | 3 (21) |
| Typical and atypical | — | 1 (9) | 0 |
| Mood stabilizers | — | 1 (9) | 11 (79) |
| Antidepressants | — | 4 (36) | 5 (36) |
Values are mean ± SD or number (percentage)
*Formaldehyde-fixed cerebellum.
†The psychiatric diagnoses were established by two senior psychiatrists on the basis of clinical and family histories and according to Feighner et al. (41) for SZ and The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV criteria for BP.
‡There was only one subject taking both typical and atypical antipsychotics in the SZ group, and this was not included in the medication categories of typical or atypical. The rows “typical, “atypical,” and “typical and atypical” in this table are mutually exclusive. In the SZ group there were one subject taking both mood stabilizer and atypical antipsychotics; two taking both antidepressant and typical antipsychotics; two taking both antidepressant and atypical antipsychotics; and one taking antidepressant and typical and atypical antipsychotics. No subject was taking both mood stabilizers and antidepressants. In the BP group, there were three subjects taking both mood stabilizers and typical antipsychotics; three subjects taking both mood stabilizers and atypical antipsychotics; one taking both antidepressant and typical antipsychotics; two taking both antidepressants and atypical antipsychotics; and four subjects taking both mood stabilizers and antidepressants.