Post by Harvard Medical School

“The air conditioner was very interesting.” That observation from a patient with schizophrenia seemed odd at first. But to Robert Freedman, then an HMS student, it raised a question that would shape decades of research: Why do some patients struggle to filter out everyday sensory information that most brains automatically tune out? The question launched Freedman on a journey to uncover the biological mechanisms underlying schizophrenia. His work challenged long-held theories that blamed family dynamics for the disorder, linked schizophrenia to differences in genetics and early brain development, and even raised the possibility that prenatal nutrition — particularly choline supplementation — could influence risk factors associated with the disease. “The idea we could prevent schizophrenia is far out there, but it essentially just fell out of the science,” he says.