BACKGROUND: Positive symptoms are a useful predictor of aggression in schizophrenia. Although a similar pattern of abnormal brain structures related to both positive symptoms and aggression has been reported, this observation has not yet been confirmed in a single sample. METHOD: To study the association between positive symptoms and aggression in schizophrenia on a neurobiological level, a prospective meta-analytic approach was employed to analyze harmonized structural neuroimaging data from 10 research centers worldwide. We analyzed brain MRI scans from 902 individuals with a primary diagnosis of schizophrenia and 952 healthy controls. RESULTS: The result identified a widespread cortical thickness reduction in schizophrenia compared to their controls. Two separate meta-regression analyses revealed that a common pattern of reduced cortical gray matter thickness within the left lateral temporal lobe and right midcingulate cortex was significantly associated with both positive symptoms and aggression. CONCLUSION: These findings suggested that positive symptoms such as formal thought disorder and auditory misperception, combined with cognitive impairments reflecting difficulties in deploying an adaptive control toward perceived threats, could escalate the likelihood of aggression in schizophrenia.
BACKGROUND: Positive symptoms are a useful predictor of aggression in schizophrenia. Although a similar pattern of abnormal brain structures related to both positive symptoms and aggression has been reported, this observation has not yet been confirmed in a single sample. METHOD: To study the association between positive symptoms and aggression in schizophrenia on a neurobiological level, a prospective meta-analytic approach was employed to analyze harmonized structural neuroimaging data from 10 research centers worldwide. We analyzed brain MRI scans from 902 individuals with a primary diagnosis of schizophrenia and 952 healthy controls. RESULTS: The result identified a widespread cortical thickness reduction in schizophrenia compared to their controls. Two separate meta-regression analyses revealed that a common pattern of reduced cortical gray matter thickness within the left lateral temporal lobe and right midcingulate cortex was significantly associated with both positive symptoms and aggression. CONCLUSION: These findings suggested that positive symptoms such as formal thought disorder and auditory misperception, combined with cognitive impairments reflecting difficulties in deploying an adaptive control toward perceived threats, could escalate the likelihood of aggression in schizophrenia.
Authors: Joaquim Radua; Eduard Vieta; Russell Shinohara; Peter Kochunov; Yann Quidé; Melissa J Green; Cynthia S Weickert; Thomas Weickert; Jason Bruggemann; Tilo Kircher; Igor Nenadić; Murray J Cairns; Marc Seal; Ulrich Schall; Frans Henskens; Janice M Fullerton; Bryan Mowry; Christos Pantelis; Rhoshel Lenroot; Vanessa Cropley; Carmel Loughland; Rodney Scott; Daniel Wolf; Theodore D Satterthwaite; Yunlong Tan; Kang Sim; Fabrizio Piras; Gianfranco Spalletta; Nerisa Banaj; Edith Pomarol-Clotet; Aleix Solanes; Anton Albajes-Eizagirre; Erick J Canales-Rodríguez; Salvador Sarro; Annabella Di Giorgio; Alessandro Bertolino; Michael Stäblein; Viola Oertel; Christian Knöchel; Stefan Borgwardt; Stefan du Plessis; Je-Yeon Yun; Jun Soo Kwon; Udo Dannlowski; Tim Hahn; Dominik Grotegerd; Clara Alloza; Celso Arango; Joost Janssen; Covadonga Díaz-Caneja; Wenhao Jiang; Vince Calhoun; Stefan Ehrlich; Kun Yang; Nicola G Cascella; Yoichiro Takayanagi; Akira Sawa; Alexander Tomyshev; Irina Lebedeva; Vasily Kaleda; Matthias Kirschner; Cyril Hoschl; David Tomecek; Antonin Skoch; Therese van Amelsvoort; Geor Bakker; Anthony James; Adrian Preda; Andrea Weideman; Dan J Stein; Fleur Howells; Anne Uhlmann; Henk Temmingh; Carlos López-Jaramillo; Ana Díaz-Zuluaga; Lydia Fortea; Eloy Martinez-Heras; Elisabeth Solana; Sara Llufriu; Neda Jahanshad; Paul Thompson; Jessica Turner; Theo van Erp Journal: Neuroimage Date: 2020-05-26 Impact factor: 6.556