Retinal Nerve Fiber Layer Abnormalities in patients with Schizophrenia referred to Hamedan Farshchian hospital

Purpose: to investigate changes in the neural layer of the retina with OCT as an analogue of possible neurodegenerative changes in patients with schizophrenia Methods: A case-control study was performed on 15 patients with chronic schizophrenia and 15 cases of acute schizophrenia compared with 15 healthy individuals. After ophthalmic examinations, OCT of optic nerve head ,NFL and macula performed for all of them . The values included the mean retinal neuronal thickness (RNFL), atrophic changes in the retinal neural fibers in the four quadrants of nasal, temporal, inferior and superior as well as the thickness of different macular areas and macular volume. Also, the patients were divided into four groups in terms of positive and negative symptoms, and the correlation between the thickness changes of the regions affected by these symptoms was investigated Results: Based on the findings of optical coagulation tomography (OCT), the structure of the neural fibers of the acute and chronic schizophrenic patients, including the thickness of the retinal neural fibrous layer (temporal region), macular thickness (central subfield) and thickness of the retinal nerve fiber layer of the right eye ( Average RNFL) were significantly altered. There was also a significant correlation between the reduction in the thickness of the retina neural layer and the prevalence of negative symptoms in schizophrenic patients. Conclusion: Optical coherence tomography can be a non-invasive method for the study of neurodegenerative diseases such as schizophrenia, which helps us to understand the nature and stage of the disease. In this study, the structure of the neural fibers of the acute and chronic schizophrenic patients in some areas significantly changed.There was also a significant correlation between the reduction in the thickness of the retina neural layer and the prevalence of negative symptoms in schizophrenic patients