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Article Analysis
What is the problem they are studying?
In general, the authors seek to analyze the mechanisms of two major neurodevelopmental disorders: that is HFA and SZ. Well, Schizophrenia (SZ), as well as autism spectrum disorders (ASD), are severe neurodevelopmental psychiatric ailments consisting of main public health issues, all of them with a prevalence of about 1% (Katz et al. pg 32). Even though ASD and SZ are arguably unique when considering the high occurrences of delusion in SZ or conflicted interests in ASD, all these disorders show similarities in their clinical phenotypes. Negative signs of patients with SZ share many features with a deficiency in social communication that is key to assessing the ASD. Other than the social deficiency, additional cognition impairment is characterized in these disorders.
How they studied it?
The researchers examined a total of 79 male adult participants with 3T MRI; that is, 23 persons’ with HFA, 24 with SZ, and another 32 healthy subjects, with the same non-verbal IQ. They made comparisons with the help of diffusion-based whole-brain tractography as well as T1 voxel-dependent morphometry.
What they found
The study results revealed that individuals with HFA and SZ showed the same white component change in the left fronto-occipital inferior fasciculus with a reduction in fractional anisotropy compared to the healthy subjects.
What their interpretation was
The whitish matter abnormalities were majorly seen in the left IFOF in both SZ and HFA, supporting the fronto-posterior underconnectivity theory. This confirms the authors’ study that these two conditions are associated with cognitive liabilities witnessed in human beings.
Work Cited
Katz, J., et al. “Similar white matter but opposite grey matter changes in schizophrenia and high‐functioning autism.” Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 134.1 (2016): 31-39.