Morphological and functional abnormalities have been found in several psychiatric diseases, including schizophrenia, schizophreniform disorder, manic-depressive disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, and panic disorder. Most research concerned schizophrenia. Altered volumes of the ventricles, cortical gray matter, basal nuclei, thalamus and limbic structures have been reported. Altered activity was found in several cortical and subcortical brain structures, in particular the frontal cortex, during cognitive and pharmacological challenge. Disease progress, genetic and environmental factors appear to influence the brain abnormalities. The specificity of the findings is still limited. The use of imaging techniques in the psychiatric clinic is still restricted. Notwithstanding these limitations, focus in psychiatry research has been switched from the question if brain abnormalities exist to where they are, of what they consist and where they originated.