Anatomical and Functional Brain Network Architecture in Schizophrenia

Dating back to the late 19th century, a longstanding hypothesis of schizophrenia is that it is a disorder of neural dissociation resulting from a disruption of the brain's anatomical association fibers. Corroborating this notion, a wealth of recent neuroimaging studies have demonstrated affected white matter connectivity in schizophrenia patients. Moreover, advances in graph theoretical examination of the brain's wiring pattern as a whole (ie, the "connectome") suggest that in addition to disruptions in structural connections, the topological organization of the brain's network is altered in afflicted individuals. In this chapter, we review studies of structural and functional brain connectivity and brain network organization in schizophrenia. In doing so, we re-examine the hypothesis that neural 'malintegration' is at the core of schizophrenia's etiology.