This comprehensive book explains the importance of imaging techniques in exploring and understanding the role of brain abnormalities in schizophrenia. The findings obtained using individual imaging modalities and their biological interpretation are reviewed in detail, and updates are provided on methodology, testable hypotheses, limitations, and new directions for research. The coverage also includes important recent applications of neuroimaging to schizophrenia, for example in relation to non-pharmacological interventions, brain development, genetics, and prediction of treatment response and outcome. Written by world renowned experts in the field, the book will be invaluable to all who wish to learn about the newest and most important developments in neuroimaging research in schizophrenia, how these developments relate to the last 30 years of research, and how they can be leveraged to bring us closer to a cure for this devastating disorder. Neuroimaging in Schizophrenia will assist clinicians in navigating what is an extremely complex field and will be a source of insight and stimulation for researchers.

Neuroimaging techniques have made a huge contribution to our understanding of schizophrenia and other neuropsychiatric disorders. Until now however, texts on both schizophrenia and neuroimaging have paid little attention to the overlap between these areas. This new volume is the first dedicated to unravelling how these techniques can help us better understand this complex disorder. Each chapter focuses on a particular research method, describing the nature of the findings, the main technological problems, and future possibilities. Though including sufficient methodological detail to be of value to imaging researchers, the emphasis throughout is on providing information of value to clinicians. Written and edited by leaders in schizophrenia research, this book details what structural and functional brain imaging studies have already established about schizophrenia and what developments are likely in the foreseeable future.

The application of brain imaging to the study of psychiatric disorders has revolutionised research into the biological basis of schizophrenia. This book provides an overview of the major techniques used in psychiatric neuroimaging, together with a summary of findings from their applications to schizophrenia research. It introduces the major structural and functional imaging modalities used in psychiatry, how these techniques are being used to study schizophrenia and the impact of neuroimaging on clinical practice. Brain Imaging in Schizophrenia is suitable for a large audience from practising psychiatrists and clinical psychologists to general practitioners, junior doctors and students of medicine, psychology and neuroscience.

This book presents the state of the art in the use of neuroimaging technologies in the study of schizophrenia and other primary psychotic disorders. The contributions of neuroimaging in the characterization of these disorders are reviewed across diagnoses, by focusing on psychopathological domains and at-risk populations in order to understand the implications for treatment. The principal neuroimaging findings are described in detail, identifying those that are common to and specific for each disorder and highlighting important pitfalls. Attention is drawn to potential translational aspects of research in the field, with discussion of emerging innovative perspectives. Neuroimaging research has shown that abnormalities of brain structure and function associated with psychiatric disorders do not reflect the boundaries of current diagnostic categories. However, neuroimaging findings are being reconsidered in the light of recent research proposals aimed at re-conceptualizing classification systems in Psychiatry. Written by leading experts, this book will appeal to all with an interest in the field, including researchers, clinicians, and trainees.

Over the last two decades, molecular genetics and brain imaging have guided efforts to find the causes of schizophrenia. It is becoming increasingly clear that many genes are involved in schizophrenia and that they interact with other factors in very complex ways, which have not yet been elucidated. Neuroimaging techniques have allowed scientists and physicians to examine brain structure, function, and chemistry in living patients with schizophrenia but results so far have been disappointing. No two patients seem to share exactly the same combination of clinical symptoms or physical findings. Yet all have the syndrome recognized as schizophrenia. The author of this accessible, well-written book argues that it is time to set aside the search for a single cause of schizophrenia and focus on the disease's final common pathway. He highlights clues from a wide range of research, including neurotransmitter, psychophysiological, and brain imaging studies. He then describes possibilities for the final common pathway at an understandable level in the context of what is already known about schizophrenia. While there are no preferred models of schizophrenia, a pattern is emerging which implicates those structures in the brain known to be important in integrating perception, cognition, and affect. A better understanding of these processes will be critical for developing more effective treatments. This book will help advance that effort. It will be of great value to psychiatrists, psychologists, neurologists, neuroimagers, and basic scientists working in the field of schizophrenia research, and to their students and trainees. It will also be of interest to clinicians and scientists concerned with other neuropsychiatric disorders, and to the families of those diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Neuroimaging and Neurophysiology in Psychiatry is an invaluable guide through the methods and applications of neuroimaging and neurophysiology.

What is schizophrenia? This is one of the most controversial questions in psychiatry and mental health research; however, in the last twenty years, there have been significant advances in our understanding of the topic. This book provides a balanced, comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the neuropathology of schizophrenia and its interpretation, covering the latest evidence derived from all fields of research, from brain scans to microscopy. The authors include many of the foremost international authorities in this rapidly developing field.

In the last two decades imaging of the brain, or neuroimaging, has become an integral part of clinical and research psychiatry. This is due to recent advances in computer technology, which has made it relatively easy to generate brain images representing structure and function of the central nervous system. Currently used clinical diagnostic imaging modalities, such as X-ray computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) , provide predominantly anatomic information. CT images reflect X-ray attenuation distribution within the brain, whereas MRI signals depend primarily on proton sensitivity and tissue relaxivity. The chapter "Structural Imaging Methods" reviews CT and MRI studies on schizophrenic and affective disorders and degenera tive central nervous system diseases. The impact of fast three dimensional (3-0) imaging and the automatic transfer from 3-D elements in the brain to artificial diagrams based on this information is considered. Since the original report of the findings of Ingvar and Franzen in 1974 and the introduction of regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) measurements, single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) has been gaining acceptance as one of the major imaging techniques, and it is available in most nuclear medicine depart ments. The section "Functional Imaging Methods (Cerebral Blood Flow - CBF, Single Photon Emission Computerized Tomography - SPECT)" describes rCBF studies with the 133Xe inhalation method utilizing a 254 detector system and rCBF images measured by SPECT using the tracer 99mTc-HMPAO.

This volume highlights the remarkable new developments in brain imaging, including those that apply magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and Positron Emission Tomography (PET), that allow us to non invasively study the living human brain in health and in disease. These technological advances have allowed us to obtain new and powerful insights into the structure and function of the healthy brain as it develops across the life cycle, as well as the molecular make up of brain systems and circuits as they develop and change with age. New brain imaging technologies have also given us new insights into the causes of many common brain disorders, including ADHD, schizophrenia, depression and Alzheimer’s disease, which collectively affect a large segment of the population. These new insights have major implications for understanding and treating these brain disorders, and are providing clinicians with the first ever set of biomarkers that can be used to guide diagnosis and monitor treatment effects. The advances in brain imaging over the last 20 years, summarized in this volume, represent a major advance in modern biomedical sciences.