Functional magnetic resonance imaging - implications for detection of schizophrenia

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is an invaluable non-invasive instrument that has been used to investigate physiological disturbances that lead to manifest psychiatric illnesses. It is hoped that efficient application of fMRI can be utilised to characterise and diagnose mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. Although there are various fMRI research studies presenting very promising diagnosis results for schizophrenia, we believe that there is much to be done to develop effective diagnostic tools for clinical purposes. We present specific examples based mostly on our past and recent work together with various examples from the recent literature. We discuss where we currently stand in the efforts of fMRI being used for diagnosis of schizophrenia, examine common possible biases and offer some solutions with the hope that fMRI can be more efficiently used in diagnostic research.