Chunk #25 — DIMENSIONS OF PSYCHOPATHOLOGY IN NEUROLEPTIC-NAÏVE PATIENTS WITH RECENT-ONSET SCHIZOPHRENIA — A proposal for MRI-based parcellation of the frontal pole
The study of the FP therefore is important not only for unraveling the neurobiological substrate of executive control of human cognitive operations, but also for examining the role that it plays in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. The activation of the rostral PFC has been suggested to correlate with clinical improvement following drug treatment.[73] Evidence for structural abnormalities of the FP emanates primarily from postmortem studies, which have revealed increased neuronal density in the PFC of those who had schizophrenia.[7475] Moreover, there is evidence for specific changes in BA 10 in schizophrenia.[7677] Previous in vivo morphometric studies of the FP in the normal brain have been limited by the lack of a consistent definition of its posterior boundary having cytoarchitectonic and or functional validity.[23] Consequently, those that have reported FP volume findings in schizophrenia[78–80] have used varying definitions of its posterior boundary, rather limiting the significance of the findings.
