Neuromelanin-Sensitive Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Schizophrenia: A Meta-Analysis of Case-Control Studies

Background: Psychiatry is in urgent need of reliable biomarkers. Novel neuromelanin-sensitive magnetic resonance imaging (NM-MRI) sequences provide a time-efficient and non-invasive way to investigate the human brain in-vivo. This gives insight into the metabolites of dopaminergic signaling and may provide further evidence for potential dopaminergic alterations in patients with schizophrenia (SCZ). The present systematic review provides a meta-analysis of case-control studies using neuromelanin-sensitive sequences in SCZ vs. healthy controls (HC).

Methods: According to predefined search terms and inclusion criteria studies were extracted on PubMed. Meta-analyses with a fixed and random-effects model with inverse variance method, DerSimonian-Laird estimator for tau(2), and Cohen's d were calculated. Bias was assessed using funnel plots. The primary study outcome was contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) in the substantia nigra compared between HC and SCZ.

Results: The total sample of k = 6 studies included n = 183 cases and n = 162 controls. Across all studies we found a significant elevation of CNR in the substantia nigra (d = 0.42 [0.187; 0.655], z = 3.521, p < 0.001) in cases compared to controls. We found no significant difference in the control region of locus coeruleus (d = -0.07 [-0.446; 0.302], z = -0.192, p = 0.847), with CNR for the latter only reported in k = 3 studies.

Conclusion: CNR in the substantia nigra were significantly elevated in cases compared to controls. Our results support neuromelanin as a candidate biomarker for dopaminergic dysfunction in schizophrenia. Further studies need to assess this candidate marker in large, longitudinal cohorts and address potential effects of disease state, medication and correlations with symptoms.