Montreal Centre a Leader in
Brain Imaging

(August 31, 2003) - Montreal is about to become home to one of the world's most advanced brain research centres.

The Brain Imaging Group aims to map the effects of mental illness on the brain. Someday, it may mean serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia could be diagnosed early enough to avoid a lifetime of anguish.

Some forms of mental illness, like depression, can be caused by psychological trauma such as child abuse. Others, like schizophrenia, are physical, or rooted in the neurons and gray matter of the brain.

People suffering from schizophrenia are living a nightmare, according to Dr. Ashok Malla of McGill University.

"They have very frightening experiences, like hearing voices," said Malla. "They perceive the world at the time very differently."

The Brain Imaging Group bought a new MRI at the Montreal Neurological Institute. The magnetic resonance imaging machine will be used purely for research purposes.

Martin Lepage is one of the group's lead researchers. He said they would first study healthy people to see how their brains light up for a specific memory task. Once the normal levels are established, they'll turn to schizophrenics.

The scans are done at the institute and then the data is sent by high-speed Internet to the Douglas Hospital Research Centre for analysis.

The researchers are looking at a specific part of the brain called the amygdala, which processes emotional information.

advertisement

Lepage says scientists already knew people with schizophrenia have trouble recognizing emotions from facial expressions.

The brain scans show they use different parts of their brain to process emotions than healthy people.

Researchers hope knowing how and where the disease manifests itself in the brain will lead to earlier detection, and perhaps even stop brain degeneration in its early stages.

top ~ next ~ articles table of contents ~ send page to a friend

We subscribe to the HONcode principles. Verify here.