ArticleEuropean archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience2014
Neuropathological changes in the substantia nigra in schizophrenia but not depression.
Article in European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 53 citations in OpenAlex.
- Glial Cell Abnormalities in Major Psychiatric Diseases: A Systematic Review of Postmortem Brain Studies.Molecular neurobiology · 2022Pooled it
- Postmortem evidence of cerebral inflammation in schizophrenia: a systematic review.Molecular psychiatry · 2016Pooled it
- Re-Examination of Inflammation in Major Depressive Disorder: Bridging Systemic and Neuroinflammatory Insights.Biomolecules · 2025Review
- Evidence of altered monoamine oxidase B, an astroglia marker, in early psychosis and high-risk state.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Article
- Glial cell deficits are a key feature of schizophrenia: implications for neuronal circuit maintenance and histological differentiation from classical neurodegeneration.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Review
- Bipolar mania and epilepsy pathophysiology and treatment may converge in purine metabolism: A new perspective on available evidence.Neuropharmacology · 2023Review
- A significant, functional and replicable risk KTN1 variant block for schizophrenia.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Human iPSC-Derived Glia as a Tool for Neuropsychiatric Research and Drug Development.International journal of molecular sciences · 2021Review
- Evidence for altered excitatory and inhibitory tone in the post-mortem substantia nigra in schizophrenia.The world journal of biological psychiatry : the official journal of the World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry · 2020Article
- Dopamine and glutamate in schizophrenia: biology, symptoms and treatment.World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) · 2020Article
- Evidence for Decreased Density of Calretinin-Immunopositive Neurons in the Caudate Nucleus in Patients With Schizophrenia.Frontiers in neuroanatomy · 2020Article
- Axonal myelin decrease in the splenium in major depressive disorder.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2019Article
- Alterations of Astrocytes in the Context of Schizophrenic Dementia.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2019Review
- The Potential Role of Regulatory Genes (Frontiers in genetics · 2019Article
- (Micro)Glia as Effectors of Cortical Volume Loss in Schizophrenia.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2018Review
- Myelination of parvalbumin interneurons: a parsimonious locus of pathophysiological convergence in schizophrenia.Molecular psychiatry · 2017Review
- Quantitative mass spectrometry reveals changes in SNAP-25 isoforms in schizophrenia.Schizophrenia research · 2016Article
- Mapping dopaminergic deficiencies in the substantia nigra/ventral tegmental area in schizophrenia.Brain structure & function · 2016Article
- The neuropathology of schizophrenia: new insights from postmortem studies.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2014Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 8 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Schizophrenia is a chronic, disabling neuropsychiatric disorder characterised by positive, negative and cognitive symptoms. The aetiology is not known, although genetic, imaging and pathological studies have implicated both neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative processes. The substantia nigra is a basal ganglia nucleus responsible for the production of dopamine and projection of dopaminergic neurons to the striatum. The substantia nigra is implicated in schizophrenia as dopamine has been heavily implicated in the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia and the prevalent psychotic symptoms and the monoamine theory of depression, and is a target for the development of new therapies. Studies into the major dopamine delivery pathways in the brain will therefore provide a strong base in improving knowledge of these psychiatric disorders. This post-mortem study examines the cytoarchitecture of dopaminergic neurons of the substantia nigra in schizophrenia (n = 12) and depression (n = 13) compared to matched controls (n = 13). Measures of nucleolar volume, nuclear length and nuclear area were taken in patients with chronic schizophrenia and major depressive disorder against matched controls. Astrocyte density was decreased in schizophrenia compared to controls (p = 0.030), with no change in oligodendrocyte density observed. Significantly increased nuclear cross-sectional area (p = 0.017) and length (p = 0.021), and increased nucleolar volume (p = 0.037) in dopaminergic neurons were observed in schizophrenia patients compared with controls, suggesting nuclear pleomorphic changes. No changes were observed in depression cases compared to control group. These changes may reflect pathological alterations in gene expression, neuronal structure and function in schizophrenia.
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