Mapping adolescent brain change reveals dynamic wave of accelerated gray matter loss in very early-onset schizophrenia

Significance of dynamic gray matter loss in normal adolescents and in schizophrenia. Highly significant progressive loss occurs in schizophrenia in parietal, motor, supplementary motor, and superior frontal cortices. Broad regions of temporal cortex, including the superior temporal gyrus, experience severe gray matter attrition. By comparison of the average rates of loss in disease (middle column) with the loss pattern in normal adolescents (first column), the normal variability in these changes can also be taken into account, and the significance of disease-specific change can be established (last column).