Abstract #3452

Perfusion Deficit in Schizophrenia and Correlation with Psychopathological Symptoms

Jinsoo Uh¹, Perry Mihalakos², Carol A. Tamminga², Hanzhang Lu¹

¹Advanced Imaging Research Center, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA; ²Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA

Cerebral blood volume (CBV) and cerebral blood flow (CBF) in Schizophrenia (SZ) have been assessed using recently developed MR techniques: Vascular Space Occupancy (VASO) MRI and Pseudo Continuous Arterial Spin Labeling (PCASL). Both of CBV and CBF showed deficits in frontal lobe of SZ patients compared to normal controls. The correlation study between CBV/CBF and Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) showed that the psychopathological symptom is negatively correlated with the perfusion of SZ in hippocampus. These results support previous PET studies and demonstrate that current MR techniques are feasible for probing cerebrovascular pathologies in SZ.