Andreasen, Nancy Coover

   (1938–)

   Known for introducing new imaging techniques in the study of schizophrenia, Andreasen was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, and earned a Ph.D. in English literature at the University of Nebraska in 1963. She taught English at several institutions in Nebraska and then, after a harrowing encounter with a postpartum infection (and after being inspired by the life-saving powers of antibiotics), decided to study medicine. She received her M.D. from the University of Iowa in 1970, trained as a psychiatrist, and remained at Iowa—a university that already was a powerhouse in biological psychiatry—for the rest of her career. In 1981, she was appointed professor of psychiatry and later became chair of the department. In 1992, she became the eleventh editor of the American Journal of Psychiatry—a publication founded in 1844—and the first woman to fill that office. In 1986, she led the first quantitative magnetic-resonance study of schizophrenia (see NEUROIMAGING), reinforcing the hypothesis that schizophrenia was a neurodevelopmental disease associated with "hypofrontality" rather than being psychogenic or a result of toxic exposure in adult life. (See Schizophrenia: Recent Concepts.) She is also known for developing a scale for the measurement of negative symptoms in schizophrenia, work published in the Archives of General Psychiatry in 1982 that became a "citation classic." (See Positive vs. Negative Symptoms.)