Longitudinal changes in resting-state cerebral activity in patients with first-episode schizophrenia: A 1-year follow-up functional MR imaging study

Abstract

Purpose: To determine whether the brain functional abnormalities of drug-naive first-episode schizophrenia are reduced after 1 year of undergoing antipsychotic treatment and whether pretreatment resting-state functional magnetic resonance (MR) imaging parameters are associated with longitudinal changes in clinical symptoms. Materials and Methods: This prospective study was approved by the local ethical committee, and written informed consent was obtained from all participants. Twenty antipsychotic-naive first-episode patients with schizophrenia and 16 healthy individuals were recruited and underwent resting-state functional MR imaging at baseline and again at 1-year follow-up, by which time significant clinical improvement was seen. The amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) and seedbased functional connectivity (FC) were analyzed with analysis of covariance. Results: The amount of ALFF in the right inferior parietal lobule (IPL) and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and the amount of FC between the bilateral IPLs significantly increased over the follow-up period, and the amount of ALFF in the right occipital gyrus was reduced (P