# Brain cortex structure linked to mental abilities and psychiatric disorders - Medical Xpress, 13 June 2025
A quote related to schizophrenia:
“Global mean cortical thickness (MTH) exhibits significant causal effects on five phenotypes, including schizophrenia. MTH reduces schizophrenia risk, and bidirectional causality is found between MTH and smoking initiation. Finally, in regional analyses, we detect positive influences of the transverse temporal surface area on cognitive performance and negative influences of transverse temporal thickness on schizophrenia risk.”
Overall, the results of the analyses performed by this team of researchers suggest that cortical morphology does in fact affect both people’s mental capabilities and neuropsychiatric traits. The causal relationships identified by Lin, Li and his colleagues could be explored further in future neuroscience studies, potentially helping to improve the early diagnosis and treatment of specific disorders, including schizophrenia and some cognitive deficits.
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@CopperKettle do you remember a thread you authored awhile back about psychosis originating through one specific brain network? I think the language was something like “we’ll look what we found”. I think the post was from twitter. I was wondering whatever happened with that.
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I’ll try to recall that!
My brain is too overwhelmed now, due to a recently discovered squamous cell carcinoma in my papilloma twice-removed (from the same spot in a nostril). Although it’s twice-removed, I’m due for a lot of exams. I’m undergoing all kinds of tests and scans.
Oh man, I’m so sorry… 
you doing alright with it all?
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Thank you! I’ve been not feeling alright since November 2020, when bouts of heaviness in the left flank started, accompanied by fatigue. I’ve been unable to do mental work - my translation speed decreased from 20 pages/day to barely 1 page/day, so I’ve been delivering food since March 2024. That’s why I returned to reading about all kinds of psychiatric stuff, and translating some into Russian, for instance, papers about cerebral folate deficiency, because I’ve been feeling much better after addition of methylfolate and folinic acid (i/m injections) to my SSRI antidepressant (escitalopram, now venlafaxine). I resurrected the CFD article in the English Wikipedia and wrote one for the Russian Wikipedia.
Based on blood test results I’ve just fetched at the local outpatient clinic, I might be having a liver metastasis. ALT and AST, which were elevated in the previous test, have edged higher, and fibrinogen, which was elevated too, remained so. And now I’ve developed mild leukopenia (low WBCs).