The brain is the major target organ of pathophysiological research on schizophrenia. Compared with other organs, the brain uses a huge amount of energy, equivalent to 20% of the total glucose and 25% of the oxygen consumed in the entire human body, even though it corresponds to only 2% of total body weight. This huge amount of oxygen and glucose is used for producing ATP through mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation. The vascular system and nervous system closely collaborate to efficiently deliver the energy to the functionally differentiated areas that constitute the whole brain. In relation to this feature of the brain, i. e., glucose oxidation and neurovascular coupling, we review the metabolism and structure of the brains of schizophrenia sufferers. We discuss the extraction of a small subclass with glycation stress, which we propose as a strategy to resolve the replication issue among schizophrenia studies. We also report schizophrenia and control cases examined using synchrotron radiation nano-CT having high resolution, which allowed us to disassemble the syndrome even to the individual brain level. The nano-CT results indicate that this method can be applied to the investigation of energy metabolism in schizophrenia.
 Authors' abstract