Breakdown of brain's visual networks linked to mental illness
Individual regions of the brain have to team up to get things done. And like in any team, the key to working together is communication.
Duke researchers used brain imaging to identify how patterns of brain connectivity -- the ability of different brain regions to talk to each other -- can affect a person's likelihood of developing common forms of mental illness.
Surprisingly, they found that brain regions that help process what we see may play a key role in mental health. The results show that a person's risk of mental illness broadly increases when the visual cortex has trouble communicating with brain networks responsible for focus and introspection.