CS01-01 - Electrophysiology of Schizophrenia

Abstract

The history of electrophysiological methods in Psychiatry is studded with ups and downs. Recently, several factors contributed to the renascence of the electrophysiological methods in schizophrenia research; in particular: a) the validation of previously reported electrophysiological findings by means of functional brain imaging techniques; b) the possibility offered by electrophysiological techniques to study brain's systems physiological and pathological activity with a high temporal resolution; c) a different conceptualizations of psychopathological phenomena, no longer considered as the result of a dysfunction of one or more brain regions, but as a consequence of the failure to integrate the activity of different areas. Main deliveries of such renascence include: advances in the study of abnormal functional connectivity underlying schizophrenia symptoms and the identification of electrophysiological endophenotypes. Notwithstanding the fact that electrophysiological abnormalities were shown to be related to diagnostic subtypes, risk factors, symptom dimensions and prognosis, electrophysiological methods are still of limited impact in clinical settings, and their application is confined to the exclusion of “organic” brain pathology.