Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Thalamic Mediodorsal Nucleus and Pulvinar in Schizophrenia and Schizotypal Personality Disorder

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Abstract
SCHIZOPHRENIA involves impairments in multiple brain circuits that synaptically gate or relay information through the thalamus. Consequently, the thalamus is being scrutinized as a site of schizophrenia-related abnormalities. Postmortem studies of schizophrenia have revealed synaptic degeneration and volumetric loss in thalamic subdivisions.1-4 Neuroimaging studies have also detected schizophrenia-associated thalamic abnormalities5-9 but have not localized changes to anatomically defined thalamic subdivisions. Instead, they have described changes in size, shape, or function of broadly delimited thalamic regions or within the entire thalamus.