The approach revealed the brain’s ability to steer itself back toward balance after disturbances, and the findings suggest that people with schizophrenia experience more frequent imbalances in brain network activity and greater difficulty restoring that balance once it is lost.

“Our findings reveal that schizophrenia is not simply a disorder in which the brain falls out of balance more often,” said Sir-Lord Wiafe, a Georgia State doctoral candidate in computer science and first author of the study.