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Schizophrenia is a disabling clinical syndrome found across the world. While the incidence and clinical expression of this illness are strongly influenced by ethnic factors, it is unclear whether patients from different ethnicities show distinct brain deficits. In this multicentre study, we used structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging to investigate neuroanatomy in 126 patients with first episode schizophrenia who came from 4 ethnically distinct cohorts (White Caucasians, African-Caribbeans, Japanese, and Chinese). Each patient was individually matched with a healthy control of the same ethnicity, gender, and age (±1 year). We report a reduction in the gray matter volume of the right anterior insula in patients relative to controls (P < .05 corrected); this reduction was detected in all 4 ethnic groups despite differences in psychopathology, exposure to antipsychotic medication and image acquisition sequence. This finding provides evidence for a neuroanatomical signature of schizophrenia expressed above and beyond ethnic variations in incidence and clinical expression. In light of the existing literature, implicating the right anterior insula in bipolar disorder, depression, addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and anxiety, we speculate that the neuroanatomical deficit reported here may represent a transdiagnostic feature of Axis I disorders., (© The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center.)

Patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) have increased rates of neurological soft signs (NSS) when compared to healthy controls. However, previous findings have been confounded by the presence of co-morbidity with disorders themselves associated with increased NSS, such as schizophrenia. Moreover, it remains unclear whether NSS in OCD reflect a vulnerability to this disorder. This study aimed to examine: 1) the severity of NSS in patients with OCD alone, in patients with OCD and co-morbid psychosis (schizophrenia or bipolar disorders), and in healthy controls; and b) whether unaffected first-degree relatives of patients with OCD also demonstrate a higher prevalence rate of NSS than healthy controls. NSS were assessed with the Cambridge Neurological Inventory (CNI) in 100 patients with OCD, 38 patients with OCD and psychosis (22 with bipolar disorders and 16 with schizophrenia), and 101 healthy controls. Forty-seven unaffected first-degree relatives of patients with OCD only were also administered the CNI. Patients with OCD showed significantly higher scores in motor coordination and total NSS than controls, and patients with OCD co-morbid with psychosis also showed significantly higher scores in motor coordination and total NSS than controls. Although there were no differences in NSS between patients with OCD only and OCD and psychosis as a whole, patients with OCD co-morbid with schizophrenia showed significantly higher scores in motor coordination than patients with OCD, patients with OCD and bipolar disorder, and healthy controls. Unaffected first-degree relatives only showed a higher prevalence rate than healthy controls in specific motor coordination signs, such as Opposition and Extinction. These findings suggest that patients with OCD exhibit more NSS than healthy controls, and that motor coordination signs may be even more extensive when OCD is co-morbid with psychosis. Some of these abnormalities may be indicative of a vulnerability to these disorders, as indicated by their presence in un-affected first-degree relatives., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)