Anterior cingulate grey-matter deficits and cannabis use in first-episode schizophrenia -- Szeszko et al. 190 (3): 230 -- The British Journal of Psychiatry
Anterior cingulate grey-matter deficits and cannabis use in first-episode schizophrenia -- Szeszko et al. 190 (3): 230 -- The British Journal of Psychiatry:
"Background Despite the high prevalence of cannabis use in schizophrenia, few studies have examined the potential relationship between cannabis exposure and brain structural abnormalities in schizophrenia.
Aims To investigate prefrontal grey and white matter regions in patients experiencing a first episode of schizophrenia with an additional diagnosis of cannabis use or dependence (n=20) compared with similar patients with no cannabis use (n=31) and healthy volunteers (n=56).
Method Volumes of the superior frontal gyrus, anterior cingulate gyrus and orbital frontal lobe were outlined manually from contiguous magnetic resonance images and automatically segmented into grey and white matter.
Results Patients who used cannabis had less anterior cingulate grey matter compared with both patients who did not use cannabis and healthy volunteers.
Conclusions A defect in the anterior cingulate is associated with a history of cannabis use among patients experiencing a first episode of schizophrenia and could have a role in poor decision-making and in choosing more risky outcomes."
FROM WIKIPEDIA:
The Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is the frontal part of the cingulate cortex, which resembles a "collar" form around the corpus callosum, the fibrous bundle that relays neural signals between the right and left cerebral hemispheres of the brain.
It includes both the ventral and dorsal areas of the cingulate cortex, and appears to play a role in a wide variety of autonomic functions, such as regulating blood pressure and heart rate, as well as rational cognitive functions, such as reward anticipation, decision-making, empathy and emotion.
Neuroscientists indicate the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex is primarily related to rational cognition while the ventral is more related to emotional cognition
[...]
Pathology
Stimulation of the anterior cingulate (also known as Area 25) with low dosages of electric current in neurosurgical studies has been shown to improve depression in a portion of test subjects.
Studying the effects of damage to the ACC provides insights into the type of functions it serves in the intact brain. Behavior that is associated with lesions in the ACC includes: inability to detect errors, severe difficulty with resolving stimulus conflict in a Stroop task, emotional instability, inattention, and akinetic mutism (Bush et al., 2000; Posner & DiGirolamo, 1998). There is evidence that damage to ACC is present in patients with schizophrenia, where studies have shown patients have difficulty in dealing with conflicting spatial locations in a Stroop-like task and having abnormal ERNs (Holroyd et al., 2004; Posner & DiGirolamo, 1998). Participants with ADHD were found to have reduced activation in the dorsal area of the ACC when performing the Stroop task (Bush et al., 1999). Together these findings corroborate results from imaging and electrical studies about the variety of functions attributed to the ACC.
There is evidence that this area may have a role in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder due to the fact that what appears to be an unnaturally low level of glutamate activity in this region has been observed in patients with the disorder, [6] in strange contrast to many other brain regions which are thought to have excessive glutamate activity in OCD.
Helen S. Mayberg and two collaborators described how they cured eight of 12 spectacularly depressed people — individuals virtually catatonic with depression despite years of talk therapy, drugs, even shock therapy, with pacemakerlike electrodes in area 25. A decade earlier Mayberg had identified area 25 as a key conduit of neural traffic between the "thinking" frontal cortex and the central limbic region that gives rise to emotion, which appeared earlier in our evolutionary development. She subsequently found that area 25 runs hot in depressed and sad people — "like a gate left open," as she puts it — allowing negative emotions to overwhelm thinking and mood. Inserting the electrodes closed this gate and rapidly alleviated the depression of two-thirds of the trial's patients (Deep Brain Stimulation for Treatment-Resistant Depression. Helen S. Mayberg et al. in Neuron, Vol. 45, No. 5, pages 651-660; March 3, 2005).
"Background Despite the high prevalence of cannabis use in schizophrenia, few studies have examined the potential relationship between cannabis exposure and brain structural abnormalities in schizophrenia.
Aims To investigate prefrontal grey and white matter regions in patients experiencing a first episode of schizophrenia with an additional diagnosis of cannabis use or dependence (n=20) compared with similar patients with no cannabis use (n=31) and healthy volunteers (n=56).
Method Volumes of the superior frontal gyrus, anterior cingulate gyrus and orbital frontal lobe were outlined manually from contiguous magnetic resonance images and automatically segmented into grey and white matter.
Results Patients who used cannabis had less anterior cingulate grey matter compared with both patients who did not use cannabis and healthy volunteers.
Conclusions A defect in the anterior cingulate is associated with a history of cannabis use among patients experiencing a first episode of schizophrenia and could have a role in poor decision-making and in choosing more risky outcomes."
FROM WIKIPEDIA:
The Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is the frontal part of the cingulate cortex, which resembles a "collar" form around the corpus callosum, the fibrous bundle that relays neural signals between the right and left cerebral hemispheres of the brain.
It includes both the ventral and dorsal areas of the cingulate cortex, and appears to play a role in a wide variety of autonomic functions, such as regulating blood pressure and heart rate, as well as rational cognitive functions, such as reward anticipation, decision-making, empathy and emotion.
Neuroscientists indicate the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex is primarily related to rational cognition while the ventral is more related to emotional cognition
[...]
Pathology
Stimulation of the anterior cingulate (also known as Area 25) with low dosages of electric current in neurosurgical studies has been shown to improve depression in a portion of test subjects.
Studying the effects of damage to the ACC provides insights into the type of functions it serves in the intact brain. Behavior that is associated with lesions in the ACC includes: inability to detect errors, severe difficulty with resolving stimulus conflict in a Stroop task, emotional instability, inattention, and akinetic mutism (Bush et al., 2000; Posner & DiGirolamo, 1998). There is evidence that damage to ACC is present in patients with schizophrenia, where studies have shown patients have difficulty in dealing with conflicting spatial locations in a Stroop-like task and having abnormal ERNs (Holroyd et al., 2004; Posner & DiGirolamo, 1998). Participants with ADHD were found to have reduced activation in the dorsal area of the ACC when performing the Stroop task (Bush et al., 1999). Together these findings corroborate results from imaging and electrical studies about the variety of functions attributed to the ACC.
There is evidence that this area may have a role in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder due to the fact that what appears to be an unnaturally low level of glutamate activity in this region has been observed in patients with the disorder, [6] in strange contrast to many other brain regions which are thought to have excessive glutamate activity in OCD.
Helen S. Mayberg and two collaborators described how they cured eight of 12 spectacularly depressed people — individuals virtually catatonic with depression despite years of talk therapy, drugs, even shock therapy, with pacemakerlike electrodes in area 25. A decade earlier Mayberg had identified area 25 as a key conduit of neural traffic between the "thinking" frontal cortex and the central limbic region that gives rise to emotion, which appeared earlier in our evolutionary development. She subsequently found that area 25 runs hot in depressed and sad people — "like a gate left open," as she puts it — allowing negative emotions to overwhelm thinking and mood. Inserting the electrodes closed this gate and rapidly alleviated the depression of two-thirds of the trial's patients (Deep Brain Stimulation for Treatment-Resistant Depression. Helen S. Mayberg et al. in Neuron, Vol. 45, No. 5, pages 651-660; March 3, 2005).
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