Complexity Digest 2003.04 - 15

27-Jan-2003

Neuroscience: White Matter's the Matter, Science Bookmark and Share

Excerpts: Scientists have long known that connections somehow go awry in the brains of people with schizophrenia. Now advances in imaging and gene technology are allowing them to trace the axons that connect from neuron to neuron and make up the brain's white matter. (...) diffusion tensor technology, showing that the alignment of axons is askew in the frontal lobes of patients with schizophrenia. The new data comport with earlier observations from postmortem brains indicating that even though schizophrenia patients aren't short on brain cells, connecting fibers are sparse.