Dr. Ford co-directs the Brain Imaging and Electroencephalography (EEG) Laboratory at the University of California in San Francisco, where she is using human electrophysiological methods to understand failures of a basic neurophysiological mechanism in patients with schizophrenia. Neurophysiology is the study of nervous system function. This mechanism is ubiquitous across the animal kingdom and allows all animals to ignore the sensations that result from their own movements. With each movement, a corollary discharge of the motor command is sent to the sensory cortex, canceling or dampening the resulting sensations and tagging them as coming from “self.” Dr. Ford’s laboratory has recorded the biological signature of the corollary discharge, shown that it is dysfunctional in patients with schizophrenia, and that its dysfunction is related to the severity of the “voices” they hear.

Dr. Ford was former Director of the Schizophrenia Biological Research Center of the VA Connecticut Healthcare System and has taught at Stanford and Yale.