Neuroscience Letters 531 (2012) 5–9 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Neuroscience Letters jou rn al h om epage: www.elsevier.com/locate/neulet Right lateralized white matter abnormalities in first-episode, drug-naive paranoid schizophrenia Wenbin Guo a,b,1 , Feng Liu c,1 , Zhening Liu a,1 , Keming Gao d , Changqing Xiao b , Huafu Chen c,∗ , Jingping Zhao a,e,∗∗ a Mental Health Institute of the Second Xiangya Hospital, Key Laboratory of Psychiatry and Mental Health of Hunan Province, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan 410011, China b Mental Health Center, The First Affiliated Hospital, Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, Guangxi 530021, China c Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, Sichuan 610054, China d Mood and Anxiety Clinic in the Mood Disorders Program of the Department of Psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine/University Hospitals Case Medical Center, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA e The Hangzhou Seventh People Hospital, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310001, China h i g h l i g h t s ◮ WM alterations in multiple regions may be involved in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia. ◮ Patients with first-episode, drug-naive paranoid schizophrenia were enrolled in the study. ◮ TBSS method could detect WM tracts integrity alterations in patients and controls. ◮ WM changes of cortical and subcortical areas attribute to pathogenesis of paranoid schizophrenia. a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 26 July 2012 Received in revised form 14 September 2012 Accepted 17 September 2012 Keywords: Paranoid schizophrenia Diffusion tensor imaging Tract-based spatial statistics White matter a b s t r a c t Numerous studies in first-episode schizophrenia suggest the involvement of white matter (WM) abnor- malities in multiple regions underlying the pathogenesis of this condition. However, there has never been a neuroimaging study in patients with first-episode, drug-naive paranoid schizophrenia by using tract- based spatial statistics (TBSS) method. Here, we used diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) with TBSS method to investigate the brain WM integrity in patients with first-episode, drug-naive paranoid schizophre- nia. Twenty patients with first-episode, drug-naive paranoid schizophrenia and 26 healthy subjects matched with age, gender, and education level were scanned with DTI. An automated TBSS approach was employed to analyze the data. Voxel-wise statistics revealed that patients with paranoid schizophre- nia had decreased fractional anisotropy (FA) values in the right superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF) II, the right fornix, the right internal capsule, and the right external capsule compared to healthy subjects. Patients did not have increased FA values in any brain regions compared to healthy subjects. There was no correlation between the FA values in any brain regions and patient demographics and the severity of illness. Our findings suggest right-sided alterations of WM integrity in the WM tracts of cortical and subcortical regions may play an important role in the pathogenesis of paranoid schizophrenia. © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. Abbreviations: WM, white matter; TBSS, tract-based spatial statistics; DTI, diffusion tensor imaging; SLF, superior longitudinal fasciculus; MRI, magnetic resonance imaging; FA, fractional anisotropy; ROI, region of interest; VBM, voxel-based morphometry; SCID-P, structured clinical Interview for DSM-IV, patient version; PANSS, Positive and Negative Symptom Scale; GE, General Electric; AC–PC, anterior commissure–posterior commissure; FMRIB, Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain; FSL, FMRIB software library; TFCE, threshold-free cluster enhancement. ∗ Corresponding author. ∗∗ Corresponding author at: Mental Health Institute of the Second Xiangya Hospital, Key Laboratory of Psychiatry and Mental Health of Hunan Province, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan 410011, China. Tel.: +86 731 85360921; fax: +86 731 85360921. E-mail addresses: chenhf@uestc.edu.cn (H. Chen), zhaojingpingcsu@163.com, edsgwb@126.com (J. Zhao). 1 These authors contributed equally to this work. 0304-3940/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neulet.2012.09.033