[b]Background: [/b]Contemporary research on the neurobiological determinants of schizophrenia is focused on the role of white matter abnormalities, studied mainly at the cellular level using Diffusion Tensor Imaging. At the same time, there are few reports on the effects of white matter damage that can be visualized in a typical MRI scan, on the brain function of schizophrenic patients. The aim of this study was to identify the specific features of the neuropsychological and neurophysiological functioning of a female patient with first-onset schizophrenia and comorbid white matter damage, which discriminated her from a healthy control and from a patient with an identical psychiatric diagnosis, but having no structural brain changes seen in an MRI scan. Identification of those features may help understand the role of subcortical brain dysfunctions in the aetiology and clinical picture of schizophrenia. [b]Case study:[/b]The investigation encompassed clinical, neuropsychological and neurophysiological assessment of two schizophrenic patients, of whom one had comorbid white matter damage imaged by structural MRI, and a healthy control. A number of areas of cognitive functioning were examined, including the speed of information processing and executive and memory functions. The study was conducted using EEG coherence analysis, power spectral density, and energy evaluation of neuronal activity with the Matching Pursuit algorithm.[b]Results: [/b]The study showed that, despite the fact that there were no differences in the psychopathological pictures of the schizophrenic patients, the neuropsychological and neurophysiological differences between them were substantial and related to the profile of cognitive impairments and the specific features of the brain function of the patient with abnormalities in the white matter: that patient’s EEG showed discoherence in the anterior part of the brain, reduced diversity of the dominant frequency of neuronal activity, and pathologically increased energy parameters for low-frequency bands. [b]Conclusions: [/b]Comorbidity of white matter damage with schizophrenia has a potentially significant effect on cerebral activity giving rise to specific information processing deficits. Further research in this area should be conducted with a view to determining biomarkers of mental diseases and improving the validity of clinical psychiatric diagnosis.
White Matter Damage of the Brain is Associated with Poor Outcome in Vascular Surgery Patients with Claudication: A Pilot Study
