Imaging the Schizophrenic Brain

Professor Jeffrey Lieberman discusses how neuorimaging studies are providing fresh insights into brain structures associated with schizophrenia.

The brain is the final frontier of biomedical research and one of the reasons that it is the last organ to be fully investigated is because it lies within the skull and is not really available for examination unless you do something pretty invasive like remove part of the skull. With imaging, such as magnetic resonance imaging scans and PET scans, you can examine the structure and the function of the brain in a way that is not invasive - that does not interfere, disturb, or harm the brain. So that was the critical breakthrough to allow us to examine the brains of people - normal people, and people with mental disorders - without having to cause massive harm in the process.