Objective: Schizophrenia is a significant burden for the patient and causes great costs for society. The etiology in schizophrenia, which is known as a neurodevelopmental disorder, has not been fully elucidated. Differences in prenatal gonadal hormones have been suggested to play a role in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia. An easy way to evaluate the biomarker that gives insight about prenatal androgen is the second to fourth digit ratio (2d: 4d) of the hand. In this study, we aimed to compare the 2d: 4d ratio of schizophrenia patients to healthy controls and to investigate the relationship between positive and negative symptoms.
Method: 76 patients with schizophrenia and 67 healthy controls were included in the study. Finger lengths were measured from the proximal finger wrinkle to the tip using a digital vernier caliper with a precision of 0.01 mm. Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms (SAPS) and Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS) was used to evaluate the symptoms of schizophrenia.
Results: While the left 2d: 4d ratio of the patients with schizophrenia was not different from the controls, the right 2d: 4d ratio was significantly lower. The correlation between finger lengths with the SAPS and SANS scores by gender with the SANS scores of female patients, the left and right 2d: 4d were negatively correlated with the rate. SANS scores were found to be positively correlated with right 2d: 4d digit ratio in men.
Conclusion: The findings of our study support the view that the right 2d: 4d ratio may be an indicator of schizophrenia.
Key words: Schizophrenia, digit ratio, finger length ratio, testosterone, estrogens
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