Size of hippocampal pyramidal neurons in schizophrenia
Highley JR., Walker MA., McDonald B., Crow TJ., Esiri MM.
<jats:sec><jats:title>Background</jats:title><jats:p>Meta-analyses of hippocampal size have indicated that this structure is smaller in schizophrenia. This could reflect a reduction in the size of constituent neurons or a reduced number of neurons.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Aims</jats:title><jats:p>To measure the size of hippocampal pyramidal neurons in the brains of people with and without schizophrenia.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Method</jats:title><jats:p>Pyramidal neuron size in hippocampal subfields was estimated stereologically from sections taken at 5 mm intervals throughout the whole length of right and left hippocampi from the brains of 13 people with schizophrenia and 16 controls. Results were assessed using repeated-measures analysis of covariance looking for a main effect of diagnosis and gender, and interactions of these with side.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results</jats:title><jats:p>We were unable to detect significant differences related to diagnosis, gender or side for any hippocampal subfield for this series of cases.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Conclusions</jats:title><jats:p>For this series of brains, hippocampal cell size is unchanged in schizophrenia.</jats:p></jats:sec>