General Neural Correlates

• Neural correlates are measurements of the structure or function of the brain that correlates with an experience e.g. having hallucinations
• Neural correlates of negative symptoms

  • ventral striatum (involved in anticipation of a reward) - SZ patients have lower levels of activity in the ventral striatum vs controls
  • negative correlation: activity levels in the ventral striatum decrease and the severity of overall negative symptoms increase
  • links with avolition
• Neural correlates of positive symptoms

  • allen scanned the brains of patients experiencing auditory hallucinations whilst they identified pre-recorded speech as their or others
  • findings - lower activity levels in primary auditory cortex responsible for processing sounds and lower activity levels in anterior cingulate gyrus involved in higher level functions like reward anticipation and decision making