White matter alterations in first episode treatment-naïve patients with deficit schizophrenia: a combined VBM and DTI study

Categorizing ‘deficit schizophrenia’ (DS) as distinct from ‘non-deficit’ schizophrenia (NDS) may help reduce heterogeneity within schizophrenia. However, it is unknown if DS has a discrete white matter signature. Here we used MRI to compare white matter volume (voxel-based morphometry) and microstructural integrity (fractional anisotropy, FA) in first-episode treatment-naïve patients with DS and NDS and their unaffected relatives to control groups of similar age. We found that white matter disruption was prominent in DS compared to controls; the DS group had lower volumes in the cerebellum, bilateral extra-nuclear and bilateral frontoparietal regions, and lower FA in the body of corpus callosum, posterior superior longitudinal fasciculus and uncinate fasciculus. The DS group also had lower volume in bilateral extra-nuclear regions compared to NDS, and the volume of these clusters was negatively correlated with deficit symptom ratings. NDS patients however, had no significant volume alterations and limited disruption of microstructural integrity compared to controls. Finally, first-degree relatives of those with DS shared volume abnormalities in right extra-nuclear white matter. Thus, white matter pathology in schizophrenia is most evident in the deficit condition, and lower extra-nuclear white matter volumes in both DS patients and their relatives may represent a brain structural ‘endophenotype’ for DS.