ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the evidence for believing that schizophrenia results from a brain disorder. A recent and detailed account of some of this evidence may be found in Kerwin. Schizophrenia eventually became to be known as the graveyard of neuropathology. There were two major reasons for the dramatic switch of opinion in recent years towards the belief that schizophrenia is essentially a disease of the brain. The first was the chance discovery of antipsychotic drugs and the subsequent demonstration of their association with the neurotransmitter, dopamine. The second was the development of quantitative rather than qualitative studies of brain structure. In the 1950s, electroconvulsive therapy was applied to schizophrenic patients before it was applied to depression. The chapter also considers a second line of evidence that was responsible for the change of opinion about the biological basis of schizophrenia. If schizophrenia were a neurodegenerative disorder, such as Alzheimer's disease, the ventricles can become larger.
