The symptoms of schizophrenia are important both clinically and theoretically. There is great interest in identifying the course and characteristics of the symptoms in schizophrenia to determine the differential…

Categorical models
Interest in negative symptoms re-emerged in the 1970s,  as exemplified by Strauss and Carpenter (1974) and Andreasen (1979a,b,c). The turning point came perhaps from the works of Crow who, in 1980,…

Schizophrenia is characterized by a multiplicity of symptoms arising from almost all domains of mental function, e.g. language,  emotion,  reasoning,  motor activity and perception.

These symptoms vary between patients, creating very diverse symptom…

Schizotypal disorder in ICD-10 is classified in the ‘Schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders’ section as this disorder is described as possessing many of the characteristic features of schizophrenia without its obvious…

Both ICD-10 and DSM-IV provide broadly similar classifications of longitudinal course.  The subtypes of schizophrenia included in both ICD-10 and DSM-IV are paranoid, catatonic, undifferentiated and residual schizophrenia.  Hebephrenic schizophrenia is called…

Although attempts have been made to bridge the gap between ICD-10 and DSM-IV and move them closer, significant differences still persist concerning the definition, duration and subtypes of…

ICD-10 and DSM-IV provide the criteria for diagnosing schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. At best, they can only be considered an ‘arbitrary but well informed consensus on the definition of…

Many of the clinical concepts of schizophrenia summarized so far, selected from a range that could be broadened to include dozens more authors,  have been unsatisfactory in several ways:

• …

Disease as entity or as deviation from normal functioning

Kendell (1987) has pointed out that none of the four types of psychosis – schizophrenic, affective, good prognosis acute and chronic paranoid – discussed…

Bleuler (1919) regarded autism as one of the fundamental features of schizophrenia. He described it as an active withdrawal from contact with reality in order to live in an inner world of fantasy.…

Many attempts have been made to carry forward, refine or break up the syndromes described by the two conceptual giants. One motive was to improve earlier formulations of the fundamental characteristics that might…

Griesinger
There has been no time since attempts at classification began when controversy about the nature of ‘schizophrenia’  was absent.  However,  there have been periods when a sort of orthodoxy   was  …

Each account of the concept of ‘schizophrenia’ reaches into the past from a viewpoint in a contemporary present. Berrios and Hauser (1988) commented that such accounts were unhistorical because we still lived in a…

According   to   the   National   Institute   for   Mental   Health, Schizophrenia strikes one percent of the population worldwide, including approximately 2.2 million people in the United States.

The word schizophrenia conjures images of a nightmare world where strange and twisted realities exist.  Schizophrenia is a brain disorder that can be so devastating, and has such a dark history, that its very name can…

The parasite that causes toxoplasmosis has been linked to schizophrenia, and biologists in the UK may have discovered why. It seems the organism produces an enzyme that increases the production of the brain…

Scientists have discovered how the toxoplasmosis parasite may trigger the development of schizophrenia and other bipolar disorders.

The team from the University of Leeds’ Faculty of Biological Sciences (UK) has shown…

A new study shows that schizophrenia is caused, at least in part, by large, rare structural changes in DNA referred to as copy number variants…

Schizophrenia may blur the boundary between internal and external realities by overactivating a brain system that is involved in self-reflection, and thus causing an exaggerated focus on…

Is schizophrenia a disorder of glutamate hyperactivity or hypoactivity? While the predominant hypothesis for many years was that schizophrenia was a glutamate deficit disorder, there is growing evidence…

Schizophrenia is a severe psychiatric disease characterized by disorganized behavior, delusions and hallucinations. Sadly, there is no clear understanding of its cause.

Now, in a collaborative study, UCLA and Dutch…

Recently, the University of Missouri Department of Psychological Sciences introduced an addition to their field of research with the opening of the Brain Imaging Center…

Pregnant women who live through wars are more likely to give birth to a child who develops schizophrenia, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday in a study linking prenatal stress…

Both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder can be disabling conditions, and both present clinically with significant mood and psychotic symptoms. These two illnesses also share genetic…

Some schizophrenia patients become less prone to violence when taking medication, but those with a history of childhood conduct problems continue to pose a higher risk even with…