Table 1.
Description of brain samples.
| Variable | Cntr (N=20) | MDD (N=17) | SZ (N=14) | p values*
|
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MDD-Cntr | SZ-Cntr | ||||
| Demographic | |||||
| Age at death (years) | 49.5 (15.5)** | 52.5 (14.5) | 51.2 (17.7) | 0.69 | 0.90 |
| Brain weight (grams) | 1,440 (145) | 1,373 (105) | 1,331 (202) | 0.24 | 0.11 |
| Gender (male:female) | 14:6 | 9:8 | 7:7 | 0.51 | 0.48 |
| Race | - All caucasian, of Macedonian or Albanian descent - | ||||
| Histological | |||||
| Postmortem interval (hours) | 15.9 (6.9) | 14.1 (8.8) | 12.4 (5.3) | 0.47 | 0.10 |
| Storage time (months) | 26 (14) | 33 (11) | 20 (12) | 0.14 | 0.16 |
| pH*** | 6.44 (0.32) | 6.37 (0.26) | 6.33 (0.29) | 0.46 | 0.37 |
| Clinical | |||||
| Cause of Death | |||||
| Suicide | 0 | 17 | 8 | ||
| Suicide by poison | 0 | 5 | 0 | ||
| Homicide or violent accident | 12 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Myocardial infarct/ heart failure | 5 | 0 | 4 | ||
| Other | 3 | 0 | 2 | ||
| Major depression, severe and/or recurrent | 12 | ||||
| Major depression, with psychosis | 6 | ||||
| SRI exposure | 4 | 1 | |||
| Tricyclic antidepressant exposure | 8 | 4 | |||
| Schizophrenia subtype (undifferentiated: paranoid: schizophreniform: schizoaffective) | 6:6:1:1 | ||||
| Lifetime antipsychotic exposure (< 1 month; 1–10 years; > 10years) | 0:1:0 | 1:5:8 | |||
*
p values from t-tests, or chi-square test for gender
**
Mean (S.D.)
***
pH values missing from 4 SZ and 2MDD subjects