neural correlates

• explanation with evidence

  • schizophrenia has been linked to abnormalities in brain structure.
  • the main finding is that schizophrenics have enlarged ventricles
  • Torrey used brain scanning and found that ventricles in schizophrenics were 15% larger than normal. this indicates that nearby brain tissue has not developed properly or has been damaged
• case study

  • suddath used MRI scans to study the brains of 15 discordant MZ twins where one had schizophrenia
  • findings show, that when compared to brains of the non schizophrenic twin, the schizophrenic twin had enlarged ventricles, as well as a smaller hippocampus and a lower volume of grey matter in the left temporal lobe. none of this was found in a normal pair of twins
• evaluation of neural correlates

  _it is unclear whether abnormal brain activities are a cause of schizophrenia or an effect to schizophrenia. to find this out, a longitudinal study would have to go though during the process

  _ brain studies of schizophrenics do not always produce consistent results. Lewis examined 18 studies and found no link between enlarged ventricles and negative symptoms, reducing the support for this approach