IEPA 11

The adolescent transition from childhood to young adulthood is an important phase of human brain development and a period of increased risk for incidence of psychotic symptoms and disorders. I will review some of the recent neuroimaging discoveries concerning adolescent development, focusing on an accelerated longitudinal study of 300 healthy young people (aged 14-25 years) each scanned twice using MRI. Structural MRI, including putative markers of myelination, indicates changes in local anatomy and connectivity of association cortical network hubs during adolescence. Functional MRI indicates strengthening of initially weak connectivity of subcortical nuclei and association cortex. To link these imaging phenotypes of normal brain development to psychosis, I will also discuss the relationship between intra-cortical myelination, schizotypy and anatomical patterns of expression of risk genes for schizophrenia.