Schizophrenia key studies

Insel (2010)

Schizophrenia is a syndrome with unknown aetiology, comprising a range of universal symptoms across cultures.

Weinberger (1988)

Negative and cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia are linked to hypofrontality—reduced activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC).

McDonald et al. (2005)

Schizophrenia patients perform worse on the Stroop task, highlighting deficits in attention and cognitive control.

Freedman et al. (1987)

Schizophrenic individuals show impaired sensory gating, indicated by lack of P50 suppression between auditory stimuli.

Weinberger & Wyatt (1982)

CT scans showed that schizophrenic patients have over twice the lateral ventricle size of healthy controls, indicating brain structure abnormalities.

Davis & Phelps (1995)

Monochorionic MZ twins had a higher concordance rate (60%) for schizophrenia than dichorionic twins (32%), suggesting prenatal environment plays a role.

Schiffman et al. (2004)

Children who later developed schizophrenia showed reduced sociability and motor deficits when observed at age 11–13.

Jentsch et al. (1997)

Monkeys treated with PCP showed impaired prefrontal cortex function, supporting the glutamate hypothesis of schizophrenia.

Abi-Dargham et al. (1998)

SPECT scans revealed increased dopamine activity in the striatum after amphetamine use in schizophrenia patients, supporting the dopamine hypothesis.

Laskaris et al. (2016)

Microglial activation increased in high-risk and schizophrenic individuals, supporting a neuroinflammatory component to the disorder.