Brain structural changes in schizoaffective disorder compared to schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

Amann BL, Canales-Rodriguez EJ, Madre M, Radua J, Monte G,Alonso-Lana S, Landin-Romero R, Moreno-Alcazar A,Bonnin CM, Sarro S, Ortiz-Gil J, Gomar JJ, Moro N,Fernandez-Corcuera P, Goikolea JM, Blanch J, Salvador R, Vieta E,McKenna PJ, Pomarol-Clotet E. Brain structural changes inschizoaffective disorder compared to schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.Objective: Brain structural changes in schizoaffective disorder, and howfar they resemble those seen in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, haveonly been studied to a limited extent.Method: Forty-five patients meeting DSM-IV and RDC criteria forschizoaffective disorder, groups of patients with 45 matchedschizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and 45 matched healthy controlswere examined using voxel-based morphometry (VBM).Results: Analyses comparing each patient group with the healthycontrol subjects found that the patients with schizoaffective disorderand the patients with schizophrenia showed widespread andoverlapping areas of significant volume reduction, but the patients withbipolar disorder did not. A subsequent analysis compared the combinedgroup of patients with the controls followed by extraction of clusters. Inregions where the patients differed significantly from the controls, nosignificant differences in mean volume between patients withschizoaffective disorder and patients with schizophrenia in any of fiveregions of volume reduction were found, but mean volumes in thepatients with bipolar disorder were significantly smaller in three of five.Conclusion: The findings provide evidence that, in terms of structuralgray matter brain abnormality, schizoaffective disorder resemblesschizophrenia more than bipolar disorder.