The term ‘Schizophrenia’ covers a wide range of illnesses with a wide range of outcomes.  This has led on the one hand to unnecessary pessimism about the outcome of schizophrenia, because the likelihood of good outcome cannot readily identified early in the illness.

On the other, a failure to identify the nature of the problem in those cases who do go on to suffer persisting problems has been a barrier to developing effective treatment for the problems that tend to persist.  

Persisting problems are associated with disorganization and impoverishment of mental activity. These were the clinical features that were emphasised in the classical descriptions of schizophrenia at the time when the illness was first identified over a hundred years ago.

The Translational Neuroimaging programme continues to carry out studies employing various neuroimaging techniques to identify the psychological and brain mechanisms associated with the disorganization and impoverishment of mental activity that are central to the classical description of the illness.  We have recently substantial progress by combining EEG with fMRI to investigate the way in which persisting disorganization of mental activity might arise from difficulties that some patients with psychosis have in predicting the results of their actions.

The role of brain oscillations in the organization of brain activity

Oscillations of the electrical signals produced in the brain play a role in the coordination of brain activity.  Short bursts of activity in the beta frequency range (15-25 cycles/sec) play a role in the activation of the brain systems that support our intended actions. Our recent work using EEG and fMRI shows that these bursts of beta activity occur less frequently in patients with psychotic illness. Individual bursts are associated with activity in more a more extensive brain region, suggesting less precise prediction of the outcome of an action.

Read more here.