Pupillometry in Schizophrenia: What We Know and Where We Could Go

Pupillometry is a uniquely effective tool for illuminating the mechanisms underlying schizophrenia, an especially heterogeneous and complex disorder. This chapter synthesizes the existing literature on pupillometry in schizophrenia as it relates to cognitive deficits, symptomatology, and special considerations (e.g., individual differences; medication and nicotine effects), and it concludes with a discussion of emerging and unexplored areas that may provide future insights (e.g., treatment applications, studies across phases of illness, and applications to social cognition and emotion regulation). Theories about the underlying pathophysiology of schizophrenia are integrated throughout the chapter and offer a hypothesis-testing framework to inform existing and future studies.