The relationship between illness duration and brain morphometry in schizophrenia: Heschl's gyrus and prefrontal cortex volumetry [Şizofrenide hastalik süresiyle beyin morfometrisi arasindaki i̇lişki: Heschl girus ve prefrontal korteks ölçümleri]

Introduction: the relationship between brain morphology and illness duration has been observed as a biomarker in psychiatric and neurologic patients,especially in schizophrenia. in this study,we aimed to investigate the relationship between the volumes of two target regions [prefrontal cortex (pfc) and heschl's gyrus (hg)] and illness duration in schizophrenia. such measurements can have implications for then understanding of cognitive impairments in schizophrenia. material-methods: 29 schizophrenia patients with a dsm-iv diagnosis of schizophrenia were evaluated with magnetic resonance imaging (mri). pfc and hg volumetric measurements were acquired by a new manual tracing method developed by us. the volumetry results were correlated with illness duration,separate for left and right regions. results: a linear decrease was seen in both hemispheres' hg volumes with increased illness duration,whereas a similar trend for pfc was not observed. discussion: hg plays an important role in the pathophysiology of auditory perception and language processing; hence the reduction of hgs volume with increasing illness duration may cast light over findings of increased cognitive dysfunction with increased illness duration in schizophrenia. however,all cognitive dysfunctions in schizophrenia could not be explained by volumetric changes. for this reason,volumetric data should be supplemented with other kinds of data,such as neuropsychological screening,genetic and other brain measures,such as electrophysiology.