Georgia State researchers identify new brain-network imbalance pattern linked to schizophrenia symptoms and cognition

Georgia State University researchers developed a new method for measuring how brain networks balance their activity and found that people with schizophrenia fall out of balance more often and recover more slowly than healthy participants.

The study, led by doctoral candidate Sir-Lord Wiafe at Georgia State’s TReNDS Center, analyzed resting-state brain scans and found that in schizophrenia, imbalances in brain network signal strength were larger, occurred more often, and took longer to correct, even though the level of randomness in brain activity did not differ between groups. Different patterns of imbalance were linked to different symptoms, including hallucinations, delusions, reduced motivation, and problems with reasoning.

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The study illustrates how Georgia researchers are using new data analysis methods to better understand complex brain disorders, a reminder of the research happening in the state’s own universities.