ArticleMolecular psychiatry2016
Medial frontal GABA is lower in older schizophrenia: a MEGA-PRESS with macromolecule suppression study.
Article in Molecular psychiatry, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 72 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
72 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 102 citations in OpenAlex.
- Medial Frontal Cortex GABA Concentrations in Psychosis Spectrum and Mood Disorders: A Meta-analysis of Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Studies.Biological psychiatry · 2023Pooled it
- Frontal neural metabolite changes in schizophrenia and their association with cognitive control: A systematic review.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2022Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Neuroanatomical phenotypes in mental illness: identifying convergent and divergent cortical phenotypes across autism, ADHD and schizophrenia.Journal of psychiatry & neuroscience : JPN · 2018Pooled it
- Neuroimaging studies of GABA in schizophrenia: a systematic review with meta-analysis.Translational psychiatry · 2017Pooled it
- Brain GABA levels across psychiatric disorders: A systematic literature review and meta-analysis of (1) H-MRS studies.Human brain mapping · 2016Pooled it
- Trial
- Effects of acute N-acetylcysteine challenge on cortical glutathione and glutamate in schizophrenia: A pilot in vivo proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy study.Psychiatry research · 2019Trial
- Age-dependent alterations in anterior cingulate excitation-inhibition balance in major depressive disorder revealed by 7-Tesla magnetic resonance spectroscopy.NeuroImage. Clinical · 2026Article
- Neurochemical changes in GABA+, Glx, and the excitatory/inhibitory ratio in the calcarine cortex with healthy aging.NeuroImage · 2025Article
- Concerted elevations of cortical and striatal glutamate and GABA in antipsychotic-free individuals at clinical high-risk for psychosis.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2025Article
- Hippocampal subfield activity in schizophrenia: Effects of the disease course.Schizophrenia research · 2025Article
- Test-retest precision of brain metabolites in healthy participants usingQuantitative imaging in medicine and surgery · 2025Article
- "Surviving and Thriving": evidence for cortical GABA stabilization in cognitively-intact oldest-old adults.Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
- Frontal GABA levels associate with musical rhythm production in healthy aging adults.Brain and cognition · 2024Article
- Association between Inhibitory-Excitatory Balance and Brain Activity Response during Cognitive Flexibility in Young and Older Individuals.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2024Article
- Exploring the relationship between lipid metabolism and cognition in individuals living with stable-phase Schizophrenia: a small cross-sectional study using Olink proteomics analysis.BMC psychiatry · 2024Article
- The impact of spectral basis set composition on estimated levels of cingulate glutamate and its associations with different personality traits.BMC psychiatry · 2024Article
- Longitudinal trajectories of anterior cingulate glutamate and subclinical psychotic experiences in early adolescence: the impact of bullying victimization.Molecular psychiatry · 2024Article
- Neurobiochemical Disturbances in Psychosis and their Implications for Therapeutic Intervention.Current topics in medicinal chemistry · 2024Review
12 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Gamma-butyric acid (GABA) dysfunction has been implicated in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia and its cognitive deficits. Proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) was used to test the hypothesis that older participants with schizophrenia have lower anterior cingulate GABA levels compared with older control participants. One-hundred forty-five participants completed this study. For detection of GABA, spectra were acquired from the medial frontal/anterior cingulate cortex using a macromolecule-suppressed MEGA-PRESS sequence. Patients were evaluated for psychopathology and all participants completed neuropsychological tests of working memory, processing speed and functional capacity. GABA levels were significantly lower in the older participants with schizophrenia (n=31) compared with the older control (n=37) group (P=0.003) but not between the younger control (n=40) and schizophrenia (n=29) groups (P=0.994). Age strongly predicted GABA levels in the schizophrenia group accounting for 42% of the variance, but the effect of age was less in the control group accounting for 5.7% of the variance. GABA levels were specifically related to working memory but not processing speed performance, functional capacity, or positive or negative symptom severity. This is the largest MRS study of GABA in schizophrenia and the first to examine GABA without macromolecule contamination, a potentially significant issue in previous studies. GABA levels more rapidly declined with advancing age in the schizophrenia compared with the control group. Interventions targeted at halting the decline or increasing GABA levels may improve functional outcomes and quality of life as patients with schizophrenia age.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.