Diffusion Tensor Imaging, Structural Connectivity, and Schizophrenia
A fundamental tenet of the “disconnectivity” theories of schizophrenia is that the disorder is ultimately caused by abnormal communication between spatially disparate brain structures. Given that the white matter fasciculi represent the primary infrastructure for long distance communication in the b...
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| Format: | Online |
| Language: | English |
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Hindawi Publishing Corporation
2011
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| Online Access: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3420716/ |
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pubmed-34207162012-08-30 Diffusion Tensor Imaging, Structural Connectivity, and Schizophrenia Whitford, Thomas J. Kubicki, Marek Shenton, Martha E. Research Article A fundamental tenet of the “disconnectivity” theories of schizophrenia is that the disorder is ultimately caused by abnormal communication between spatially disparate brain structures. Given that the white matter fasciculi represent the primary infrastructure for long distance communication in the brain, abnormalities in these fiber bundles have been implicated in the etiology of schizophrenia. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique that enables the visualization of white matter macrostructure in vivo, and which has provided unprecedented insight into the existence and nature of white matter abnormalities in schizophrenia. The paper begins with an overview of DTI and more commonly used diffusion metrics and moves on to a brief review of the schizophrenia literature. The functional implications of white matter abnormalities are considered, particularly with respect to myelin's role in modulating the transmission velocity of neural discharges. The paper concludes with a speculative hypothesis about the relationship between gray and white matter abnormalities associated with schizophrenia. Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2011 2011-07-17 /pmc/articles/PMC3420716/ /pubmed/22937272 http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2011/709523 Text en Copyright © 2011 Thomas J. Whitford et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| repository_type |
Open Access Journal |
| institution_category |
Foreign Institution |
| institution |
US National Center for Biotechnology Information |
| building |
NCBI PubMed |
| collection |
Online Access |
| language |
English |
| format |
Online |
| author |
Whitford, Thomas J. Kubicki, Marek Shenton, Martha E. |
| spellingShingle |
Whitford, Thomas J. Kubicki, Marek Shenton, Martha E. Diffusion Tensor Imaging, Structural Connectivity, and Schizophrenia |
| author_facet |
Whitford, Thomas J. Kubicki, Marek Shenton, Martha E. |
| author_sort |
Whitford, Thomas J. |
| title |
Diffusion Tensor Imaging, Structural Connectivity, and Schizophrenia |
| title_short |
Diffusion Tensor Imaging, Structural Connectivity, and Schizophrenia |
| title_full |
Diffusion Tensor Imaging, Structural Connectivity, and Schizophrenia |
| title_fullStr |
Diffusion Tensor Imaging, Structural Connectivity, and Schizophrenia |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Diffusion Tensor Imaging, Structural Connectivity, and Schizophrenia |
| title_sort |
diffusion tensor imaging, structural connectivity, and schizophrenia |
| description |
A fundamental tenet of the “disconnectivity” theories of schizophrenia is that the disorder is ultimately caused by abnormal communication between spatially disparate brain structures. Given that the white matter fasciculi represent the primary infrastructure for long distance communication in the brain, abnormalities in these fiber bundles have been implicated in the etiology of schizophrenia. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique that enables the visualization of white matter macrostructure in vivo, and which has provided unprecedented insight into the existence and nature of white matter abnormalities in schizophrenia. The paper begins with an overview of DTI and more commonly used diffusion metrics and moves on to a brief review of the schizophrenia literature. The functional implications of white matter abnormalities are considered, particularly with respect to myelin's role in modulating the transmission velocity of neural discharges. The paper concludes with a speculative hypothesis about the relationship between gray and white matter abnormalities associated with schizophrenia. |
| publisher |
Hindawi Publishing Corporation |
| publishDate |
2011 |
| url |
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3420716/ |
| _version_ |
1611550261590884352 |