Exploring the Developmental Origins of Schizophrenia

Extract

Neurodevelopment in Schizophrenia. Matcheri S. Keshavan, James L. Kennedy, and Robin M. Murray (Eds.). (2004). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 506 pp., $150.00.

Liberman and Corrigan stated in a 1992 editorial in the Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, “The question is no longer whether schizophrenia is a brain disease but rather what type of disease underlies its characteristics, symptoms, signs, and associated disabilities” (p. 119). It has been 13 years since Liberman and Corrigan wrote this editorial, and there has been a steady increase in the interest in schizophrenia among neuropsychologists as judged by the quality and quantity of papers presented at professional meetings and published in neuropsychology journals. In the April 2005 issue of The American Psychologist, Heinrichs asserted that effect sizes derived from neuropsychological tests of memory, attention, language, and reasoning are twice as large as those obtained from neuroimaging studies on individuals with schizophrenia. He concludes that “schizophrenia is a complex biobehavioral disorder that manifests itself primarily in cognition.” (p. 229). However, large effect sizes on neuropsychological tests are considerably “downstream” from the genesis of the disorder, which is widely believed to be neurodevelopmental in nature, rather than neurodegenerative. What is the neuropathological mechanism that underlies this complex cognitive disorder? This book, Neurodevelopment in Schizophrenia, is an edited volume that brings together basic and clinical neuroscientists who are trying to answer this question—what is the disease mechanism underlying schizophrenia that derails normal neurodevelopment?