Spatiotemporal complexity in the psychotic brain.
Molecular Psychiatry April 1, 2026 Qiang Li, Jingyu Liu, Godfrey D Pearlson et al.
Psychotic disorders like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder involve disruptions in the brain's information processing. Using resting-state fMRI and information-theoretic metrics, the authors show that the psychotic brain exhibits states of randomness across both spatial and temporal dimensions. They found a disruption in the balance between redundant and synergistic information, termed brainquake, indicating instability and disorganization in brain networks. Aberrant information interactions were observed in cortical and subcortical intrinsic connectivity networks, particularly in sensorimotor, visual, temporal, default mode, and fronto-parietal networks, as well as hippocampal and amygdalar regions. These findings suggest profound alterations in the brain's complexity and organizational states.