Can Brain Scans and Imaging Help in Diagnosing Schizophrenia? | with Dr. Tracey Marks

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My friend is hereditary schizophrenic and he hears voices all the time but he is actually very organised and even works hard at a job. He is also very musical. At night however i have heard him scream and argue with his voices at times he has done that for many years but he just gets on with things during the day and people have no idea he has it only his close family and friends.

I'm glad you utilized Dr Tracy Marks. I have been following her for a few years now and have learned a lot from her. Thank you for listening to my suggestion to involve her.

The collabs with Dr.Tracey have been the best so far. Thank you for the support.

My beautiful son as had this awful illness for 7 years ,he is 27 now ,its a living hell for him .he is deemed medication resistant ( nothing works he as tried loads of antipsychotics, depos ,even clozapine that caused myocarditis of his heart) My heart breaks for him ,as nothing works. I did read that it's the antipsychotics that cause the grey matter probs in the brain after taking them for a long period of time . Would be interesting to see what the brain looks like before the start of antipsychotics, and then again after long continuing use .

I have to add something, but correct me if I'm wrong: Dr. Marks says that these scans aren't specific enough to be used to validate the diagnosis. That may be true, but the problem is also, that these brain changes seen in studies are drawn from larger samples or individual cases where they did occur in fact. And even in the large samples, you don't see these changes very often. The vast majority of schizophrenics do not show any MRT differences to normal people and that means about 80-90 %. If they did, it would probably be common practice to do MRT scans, even if it is expensive and not specific to schizophrenia, because the diagnosis is not that easy to make (psychiatrists still struggle (if they are honest) to really tell what a delusion or hallucination is and how negative symptoms can be distinguished from depression) and therefore such a scan would help a lot. It would be something objective after more than 100 years of not so much progress in schizophrenia research. I've struggeled with this MRT problem for quite some time, because I'm diagnosed with chronic schizophrenia, but do not show any abnormalities in the MRT. And whenever I read about this topic, I think that it would be great if all schizophrenic patients showed MRT differences, because since I do not have them, I couldn't possibly have the diagnosis. But it's just not true, yeah it's not even suggestive of not being schizophrenic if you don't show any abnormalities in the MRT. This clarification rarely gets mentioned in textbooks or articles, usually it's just something along the lines of what we hear in the video: Dr. Marks didn't explicitly say that these changes occur in every case, but she did suggest it (a bit) by talking about the costs of the MRT and the lack of specificy for the diagnosis. The papers say similar things, they (somehow) forget talking about that and it's almost impossible to find exact numbers on this topic. The only numbers I found were those in the study I linked below. But it could have negative consequences for the patient if doctors think that a normal MRT can't possibly mean that the patient is schizophrenic. And also, a counter-intuitive "fun" fact: It's usually those schizophrenics with a slow, chronic course of the illness with predominantly negative symptoms that show brain abnormalities in the MRT and not those with an acute onset and a dramatic symptomatology. Here is a study that anyone who is interested in the topic may find worth reading: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22416264/

Your videos are always great and I'm really enjoying the collabs with Dr. Tracey

It is important to approach mental illness with empathy and understanding, rather than perpetuating harmful stereotypes.

I love that you are teaming up! Dr. Marks' content has been so helpful in learning more about my bipolar.

Fascinating!!! Thanks to both of you 🙏🏻

I watch both of your sites regularly. My daughter Sarah had a DNA swab done to see what medicines work best for her based on her genetic makeup. Both of you are fantastic. Thanks

I don't really know if this is the mentality of schizophrenics as myself but me, I don't go around comparing ourselves to others to get their sense of self worth. As everyone else I look at my true value and improve myself by my standards

Love the collab, thank you for making these videos ❤

That's very interesting ,I had a scan in my early diagnosis but I think it would be helpful for peace of mind to have other scans later on due to the stress that some people go through

Thank you for bringing this video! It answered the questions I was thinking about.

Thank you so much . This is very helpful ❤

Beautiful to have you two together. I've been following you both for a long time 😉

This video came at exactly the right time. A fMRI is in the works of being prescribed and this info was very helpful. Thank you.

Love Dr Tracey Marks! She’s in ATL where I am!

Great video, learnt alot 😀