Finding order in schizophrenic thought disorder

Abstract

Like many fields dedicated to understanding complex systems, advances in cognitive neuroscience require the convergence of many methods and sub-disciplines. Neuroimaging studies have infused the field with countless insights but long before such images of mind were commonplace, understanding how human neural tissue creates psychological experience meant understanding how behavior changes following brain injury. Patient-based approaches remain critical to interpreting the surplus of brain–behavior correlations generated by neuroimaging because only studies of neurological populations can reveal which neural systems must be intact for normal cognition to occur. Thus, it is useful to think concretely about why some populations are more suitable for making inferences about normal cognitive function than are others. Aphasia and amnesia, for example, have long been in the spotlight because of the relatively clear mapping between affected brain regions and impaired cognitive operations. Schizophrenia, by contrast, has not been traditionally cast as a useful population in cognitive neuroscience despite the well-documented presence of neural damage and cognitive dysfunction. Schizophrenia is often seen as ‘too complicated’ for making inferences about normal brain–behavior relations.