Neuropsychological functioning in MRI-derived subgroups of schizophrenia

This study examined neuropsychological functioning in two subgroups of patients with familial schizophrenia. Those who showed evidence of progressive ventricular enlargement observed across serial MRI scans (n = 6) were compared with subjects whose ventricular volume remained static (n = 10) over an average of 28 months. No differences were found in terms of age, education, ethnicity, level of psychotic symptomatology, DSM-IV subtype, age of onset, or duration of illness. Neurocognitively, the static ventricle group was impaired across more cognitive domains and had a larger percentage of subjects falling into the impaired range on a majority of measures, with the greatest differences on measures of attention (p < 0.02) and nonverbal memory (p < 0.07). These results suggest that clinically meaningful differences between these two MRI-derived subgroups of patients with schizophrenia may exist, and further underscore the heterogeneity of the illness.