New brain scans from people with psychosis may confirm a long-standing theory as to why people experience these sudden breaks from reality.
The theory states that, in psychosis, brain networks in charge of directing a person’s attention malfunction. This causes a person to experience hallucinations, or sensations of things that aren’t actually happening; and delusions, or unshakable false beliefs. Psychosis is a feature of serious mental disorders such as schizophrenia, but its symptoms exist on a continuum and can also occur independently of any defined mental disorder.
The precise details of what happens in the brain to cause psychosis have long eluded scientists. One reason for this is that psychosis is often studied in people who have long been taking antipsychotic medications, so it’s difficult to distinguish brain changes tied to the condition from those linked to the drugs.
