Table 1.
Summary of structural MRI findings by brain region for grey matter volumes in schizophrenia/people at risk of schizophrenia relative to healthy controls unless otherwise stated from recent meta-analyses, giving effect sizes (- indicates lower in schizophrenia).
| ROI | First-degree relatives: 18 studies, n = 1228 first-degree relatives of people with schizophrenia including 49 monozygotic co-twins, 62 dizygotic co-twins, 171 offspring, 842 siblings, 104 parents (de Zwarte et al., 2019) | 22q11.2 deletion syndrome: 24 studies, n = 998 22q11.2DS, 873 controls (Rogdaki et al., 2020) | Clinical high-risk with transition to psychosis (relative to clinical high-risk without transition): 28 studies, n = 1248 clinical high-risk, 1122 controls (Fortea et al., 2021) | First episode psychosis/early course schizophrenia, n = 3901 patients, 4040 controls, largely antipsychotic naïve/free (Brugger & Howes, 2017) | Chronic schizophrenia: 246 studies, n = 2830 patients, mean illness duration of 131 months, n = 3046 controls (Kuo & Pogue-Geile, 2019) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean effect size (d) corrected for ICV | p | Mean effect size (g) | p | Mean effect size (g) | p | Mean effect size (g) | p | Mean effect size (d) | p | |
| Accumbens | −0.05 | Not significant [95% CI: –0.13, 0.02] | ||||||||
| Amygdala | 0.00 | Not significant [95% CI: –0.11, 0.11] | −0.46 | <0.001 | ||||||
| Anterior cingulate cortex (left) | −0.26 | 0.006 | ||||||||
| Anterior cingulate cortex (right) | −0.39 | 0.0005 | ||||||||
| Caudate | −0.03 | Not significant [95% CI: –0.11, 0.04] | −0.11 | Not significant (p = 0.23) | ||||||
| Frontal lobe | −0.47 | <0.001 | −0.31 | <0.001 | −0.31 | 0.003 | ||||
| Fusiform (left) | −0.60 | <0.005 | ||||||||
| Fusiform (right) | −0.45 | |||||||||
| Grey matter (total) | −0.81 | <0.001 | −0.38 | <0.001 | ||||||
| Grey matter (cortical) | −0.11 | q < 0.05 corrected | ||||||||
| Hippocampus | −0.06 | Not significant [–0.14, 0.02] | −0.66 | <0.001 | −0.49 | <0.001 | ||||
| Insula (left) | −0.46 | 0.045 | ||||||||
| Insula (right) | Not significant | |||||||||
| Intracranial volume | n/a | −0.12 | <0.001 | |||||||
| Lateral ventricles | 0.09 | p < 0.05 uncorrected | 0.40 | <0.001 | 0.44 | <0.001 | ||||
| Prefrontal lobe | −0.40 | <0.001 | ||||||||
| Pallidum | −0.05 | Not significant [95% CI: –0.12, 0.02] | ||||||||
| Putamen | −0.07 | Not significant [95% CI: –0.14, 0.01] | −0.31 | 0.11 | ||||||
| Superior temporal gyrus (left) | −0.57 | 0.01 | ||||||||
| Superior temporal gyrus (right) | −0.38 | 0.0008 | −0.90 | |||||||
| Temporal lobe | −0.84 | <0.001 | −0.22 | 0.001 | −1.09 | 0.029 | ||||
| Thalamus | −0.13 | q < 0.05 corrected | −0.36 | 0.001 | ||||||
| Third ventricle | 0.15 | q < 0.05 corrected | 0.43 | <0.001 | 0.52 | <0.001 | ||||
| Total brain volume | −0.96 | <0.001 | −0.25 | <0.001 | ||||||
Dark grey boxes indicate data not reported, light grey boxes indicate no significant difference, and white boxes show significant differences.
ICV intracranial volume, GMV grey matter volume, ROI region of interest.