For the first time, researchers can see what the brain is doing inside schizophrenics when they hear voices.
Science Specialist Ed Yeates reports from Advanced Medical Technologies, where brain mapping is helping physicians tailormake therapies.
Scientists here now can not only see the structure of the brain, but how that brain is actually functioning when it's not working correctly.
Vicki Lynn Bentley got her masters degree.
So did Richard Booth.
Moe Armstrong was wandering the streets ten years ago. Now, he's earned two masters degrees.
Kerri Cottrell in Salt Lake was living out of her car. In fits of anger, she kicked holes in chairs and walls.
"Just a lot of hate," she explains, "a lot of emotions that I just couldn't let go of."
And like others with schizophrenia, Keri heard voices.
"And then I would off in the distance, and I would see a voice say, 'Okay Kerri, you can go.' And it was a real sarcastic type of a voice."
But medication has changed all that. Kerri no longer hears voices. She has a college degree and teaches dance.
"Once I got on the medication, it was just like night and day. I had to let go of my own stubborness and just trust that I needed help," she says.
For the first time, an imaging machine shows researchers incredible detail of how the brain is malfunctioning. Dr. William Orrison of the University of Utah says, "But when we watch the patients as these abnormalities are happening, we can see those abnormalities actually change in the brain."
The new technology called magnetic source imaging or MSI reveals subtleties researchers have never seen before.
Dr. Orrison says, "During the time that they are actually hearing voices or having other kinds of auditory types of hallucinations, that there is increased brain activity in that portion of the brain-- sometimes that borders on epilepta for of activity."
Epileptic-like activity which doesn't produce seizures, but perhaps delusions.
There is very little activity at the back of the head, but signifiant activity on the sides of the brain.
Dr. Jeffrey Lewine says, "So what we see here is this hallucinating patient has abnormal activity in the auditory cortex of the brain."
In normal people, auditory brain activity spans a high frequency range above nine hrtz - lots of power.
But a schizophrenic has very low frequency - low power.
Counselors listen to audio tapes simulating what many schizophrenics hear.
Using these new MSI maps, doctors can use specific medications tailormade to modify the power and eliminate voices.
"We can actually watch as the brain improves it's function. So then we're able to predict with some degree of accuracy exactly which medication may be the most effective."
And it's not just schizophrenia.
MSI has already identified subtle functional lesions in the brains of autistic children.
One autistic child was uncontrollable. But doctors followed a brain map and repaired the lesions. The patient underwent a dramatic change.
MSI might also prove useful in mapping manic depressive and obsessive compulsive disorders.
But Orrison warns while it's worked for a significant number of schizophrenic patients, it won't work for all those with the illness.
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