Mind, brain, and schizophrenia

✍ Scribed by Williamson, Peter

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 293
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Over the last two decades, molecular genetics and brain imaging have guided efforts to find the causes of schizophrenia. It is becoming increasingly clear that many genes are involved in schizophrenia and that they interact with other factors in very complex ways, which have not yet been elucidated. Neuroimaging techniques have allowed scientists and physicians to examine brain structure, function, and chemistry in living patients with schizophrenia but results so far have been disappointing. No two patients seem to share exactly the same combination of clinical symptoms or physical findings. Yet all have the syndrome recognized as schizophrenia. The author of this accessible, well-written book argues that it is time to set aside the search for a single cause of schizophrenia and focus on the disease's final common pathway. He highlights clues from a wide range of research, including neurotransmitter, psychophysiological, and brain imaging studies. He then describes possibilities for the final common pathway at an understandable level in the context of what is already known about schizophrenia. While there are no preferred models of schizophrenia, a pattern is emerging which implicates those structures in the brain known to be important in integrating perception, cognition, and affect. A better understanding of these processes will be critical for developing more effective treatments. This book will help advance that effort. It will be of great value to psychiatrists, psychologists, neurologists, neuroimagers, and basic scientists working in the field of schizophrenia research, and to their students and trainees. It will also be of interest to clinicians and scientists concerned with other neuropsychiatric disorders, and to the families of those diagnosed with schizophrenia

✦ Table of Contents

Content: The evolving concept of schizophrenia --
Candidate neuronal circuits --
When does schizophrenia begin? --
Clues from drugs that affect dopamine, glutamate, and other neurotransmitters --
Some clues from psychophysiology --
Neuropsychological studies --
Imaging brain structure in living patients --
Imaging brain function in living patients --
Imaging brain chemistry and the question of neuronal degeneration --
Pieces of the puzzle: likely components of the final common pathway --
Early models of the final common pathway: disconnection and coordination --
Early models of the final common pathway: basal ganglia-thalamocortical circuits --
Do the models fit with what we know about schizophrenia? --
Implications for treatment --
The way forward.

✦ Subjects

Schizophrenia. Neuropsychiatry. Schizophrénie. Neuropsychiatrie. Schizofrenie. Neurologische aspecten. Schizophrenia -- diagnosis. Schizophrenia -- etiology. Brain -- physiopathology. Brain Chemistry. Diagnostic Imaging -- methods. Models, Neurological. Nerve Degeneration.