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Ventricular Enlargement in Schizophrenia

A Meta-analysis of Studies of the Ventricle:Brain Ratio (VBR)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

J. D. Van Horn  and
I. C. McManus
J. D. Van Horn*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT
I. C. McManus
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, St Mary's Hospital Medical School, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, Praed Street, London W2 1NY
*
∗Correspondence
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Abstract

Multivariate meta-analysis was performed on 39 studies of ventricular size in schizophrenia which used the ventricle:brain ratio (VBR). The size of the VBR was dependent both upon the date when studies were carried out (more recent studies showing a reduction in the difference between schizophrenics and controls), and upon the diagnostic criterion used in the studies. Methodological factors in study design seemed more important than the characteristics of the schizophrenic subjects, in determining the VBR. Our analysis suggests that there is a difference in VBR between schizophrenics and controls which would seem to be an indisputable characteristic of schizophrenia. However, the difference is smaller than has previously been thought, so that, although of undoubted theoretical interest in accounting for the aetiology of schizophrenia, it is probably too small to be of practical significance in diagnosis, or in the differentiation of subtypes.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 160 , Issue 5 , May 1992 , pp. 687 - 697
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1992 

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