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Schizophrenia may soon not be one of the "great unknowns". Current research is much closer to understanding the disturbances that cause schizophrenia than is generally believed says Professor Jim Wright, an Aucklander now working in the Brain Dynamics Laboratories in Sydney and Melbourne under the auspices of the Australian Mental health Research Institute (MHRI). The MHRI has given 4.1 million Australian dollars to fund the research project in which he is involved.

Professor Wright gave a stimulating and challenging presentation to a big crowd at Selwyn Library during Schizophrenia Awareness Week.

Like Thoughts Can't be Linked
Psychiatrists have long agreed that schizophrenia is a disorder of association in the brain, says Professor Wright. The fundamental disturbance that leads on to create all the other phenomena of schizophrenia is the person's inability to associate like thoughts in his or her mind.

For sufferers, these symptoms cause a terrible feeling of loss of consistency, as though the world is changing and the meaning of everything is under question, changing and shifting all the time.

From the primary disorder of association it is possible to explain how delusions, passivity and negative symptoms-the complications of schizophrenia-can emerge step by step as the individual concerned struggles to overcome the impairment and adapt, using what are essentially normal mechanisms and rationalisations. Delusions are a perfectly normal response to a situation where people cannot associate ideas properly and accurately in their minds.

"Drastic Changes" in Brain Waves

Brain dynamics research has shown that there are "drastic changes" in the synchrony of gamma waves in the cerebral cortex of people suffering schizophrenia compared with those without the disorder, says Professor Wright. These abnormalities seen on EEG are worst when the pattern of thought is highly disorganised, and just before an auditory hallucination occurs, and become milder when delusions and negative symptoms predominate. In remission from schizophrenia, the changes are less evident but still detectable, and as a person approaches a relapse, the activity of the gamma waves again becomes grossly abnormal.

Accurate Diagnosis Possible Using EEG.
Studies in Melbourne have shown that these abnormalities occur from the very beginning of the illness in every patient with schizophrenia. Unlike many other studies where only a percentage of people may have particular symptoms, this abnormality has shown to be absolute, in other words it is present in 100% of people with schizophrenia. There are high hopes that this research could lead to "fixing" schizophrenia, says Prof. Wright. Also in the near future it is hoped that a diagnosis of schizophrenia can be easily made by a simple EEG reading sent on the internet to a central computer which can instantly and accurately identify whether or not a person is suffering symptoms of schizophrenia and can also predict relapse.

"SYNCHRONOUS OSCILLATION"

Brain dynamics combine bioscience, computer science and neuroscience. Professor Wright's EEG studies are on the theory of synchronous oscillation, the ongoing process which organises the networking of the "zillions of tiny computers" in the brain. Synaptic transmissions from cell to cell create travelling waves of activity which instantaneously communicate with each other, even though in different parts of the brain, thus enabling learning, adaptation and behaviour. Synchrony is the mechanism of association in the brain and, because it is uncoordinated in schizophrenia, it is a very important factor in understanding schizophrenia causes and effects.

Their ideas are provocative and their propositions are considered radical in some quarters, says Professor Wright. Future advances in schizophrenia will come from improving our understanding of the essential physiology of the disorder, he says.

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