All in the mind: scanner points to psychosis risk.

(From Agence France Presse)

A hi-tech scanner may give early warning to people who are at high risk of schizophrenia and other psychotic illnesses, according to a study published online by The Lancet, the British medical publication.

Psychiatrists recruited 75 people deemed to be at high risk of psychotic disorders and used a magnetic resonance imaging scanner (MRI) to take a cross-sectional view of their brains.

After a year, 23 had shown psychotic symptoms and 52 did not.

The volunteers were then scanned again, and the images were compared with those taken at the start of the study.

Those who went on to develop the disorder were …