Brain imaging may lead to targeted therapy for schizophrenia
Psychiatrists may take several approaches to treating schizophrenia, including a prescription to buy Canadian Zyprexa.
Psychiatrists may take several approaches to treating schizophrenia, including a prescription to buy Canadian Zyprexa. Research continues to inform the different ways that doctors can look at this disease. One team of scientists from England used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to focus on how delusional thinking affects certain parts of the brain.
The study team investigated a theory that overactive dopamine systems make schizophrenic individuals more likely to think of neutral external stimuli - such as newspaper articles - as being about them. Their experiment included 14 subjects with the disease and 15 healthy controls, all of whom underwent MRI while taking a questionnaire. The test had included statements that either described the patient specifically, or generic statements.
Test subjects had to decide whether each statement was about them.
Results showed that schizophrenic subjects were more likely to think that the generic statements referred to them. Furthermore, brain imaging revealed that this group had more difficulty telling apart both types of statements, as published in the journal Biological Psychiatry.
Understanding why these differences in the brain occur can help clinicians decide whether patients may benefit from treatments such as attentional retraining therapy or repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, the researchers said.
Within any 12-month period, 1.1 percent of American adults live with schizophrenia, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
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