Crow worked in the Department of Physiology at the University of Aberdeen in the late 1960s and early 1970s, where he conducted pharmacological and behavioural studies of reinforcement and self-stimulation in rats [3] for his Medical Research Council funded PhD: "Experiments on the central actions of the amphetamines with particular reference to the functions of catecholamine-containing neurones".
[8] In 1978 Crow, in conjunction with his colleague Eve Johnstone and others, showed that the anti-psychotic drug, flupentixol, reduced the severity of schizophrenic delusions specifically because of its action on the neurotransmitter dopamine.
[9] Johnstone, Crow and colleagues were also the first to demonstrate, by randomised double-blind clinical trials, that electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) could reduce the symptoms of endogenous depression, albeit over a short time period.
These illnesses are characterised by the presence of delusions, hallucinations, and disorders of thinking[12] that generally start in early and middle adult life.
[14] In the first CT scan study in 1976 Crow and colleagues at Northwick Park Hospital demonstrated that there are, across groups, structural differences in the brain (e.g. a degree of enlargement of the cerebral ventricles) in individuals who have suffered from schizophrenia compared to healthy people.