The cognitive neuropsychiatric approach to investigating the neurobiology of schizophrenia and other disorders
Section snippets
What is cognitive neuropsychiatry?
The field of neuropsychiatry has grown rapidly over recent years. Initially, this growth occurred on the basis of the recognition that it was possible to understand major psychiatric disorders as disorders of the central nervous system. In parallel to this was the recognition that disorders of behaviour and mood occurred frequently in disorders of the central nervous system [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8].
Cognitive neuropsychiatry can be considered as one of the “next generation
Cognitive neuroscience and its application to understanding psychiatric disorders
As is evident in the paragraph above, many different types of neuroscientific investigation can be applied to understanding psychiatric disorders, with variety often leading to a better cognitive neuropsychiatric strategy. However, it is not necessary that any or all, or any particular approach, be used. Instead, scientists and clinicians have the benefit of an eclectic arsenal of neuroscientific tools, paradigms and technologies. The ultimate aim is that these investigations will provide more
The cognitive neuropsychiatry of schizophrenia; multiple starting points
A good cognitive neuroscientific model is constrained by the results of multiple and simultaneous lines of enquiry. Such models begin with current conceptualisations and models of the disease in question and must also accommodate the symptoms and behaviours that characterise the different disorders.
Schizophrenia is a relatively common and often severe psychiatric disorder, presenting usually in the late teens and early twenties, with a lifetime prevalence of around 1% [17]. It is characterised
Looking for links
Our own brain–behaviour models of schizophrenia have drawn heavily on the anatomical and physiological models of the parallel and segregated interconnections between the basal ganglia and the frontal lobes identified by Alexander et al. [14]. We have argued that in schizophrenia, there is disruption to each of these frontal–striatal thalamic loops, involving all frontal lobe subregions and their interconnections with the basal ganglia and thalamic[3], [16], [44]. Thus, the DLPFC, OFC and AC are
Acknowledgements
This work has been supported by grants from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia. We thank Professor Anthony David for his comments on the manuscript.
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Cited by (52)
Differential diagnosis of delusional symptoms in schizophrenia: Brain tractography data
2023, Cognitive Systems ResearchAbnormal neural hierarchy in processing of verbal information in patients with schizophrenia
2018, NeuroImage: ClinicalCitation Excerpt :Finally, in healthy controls, we replicated previous evidence for the gradual temporal hierarchy extending through much of the human cortex including linguistic and extra-linguistic regions. Our finding of the difference in synchronization between patients and healthy controls in the prefrontal cortex corresponds to the vast literature in schizophrenia showing decreased reactivity in this region in numerous tasks and during resting state (known as hypofrontality hypothesis; Pantelis and Maruff, 2002). Thus, low-level similarity across patients observed in the DLPFC, a central player known to be deficient in schizophrenia during cognitive tasks, might be attributed to this general effect.
A pilot study on the effects of cognitive remediation on hemodynamic responses in the prefrontal cortices of patients with schizophrenia: A multi-channel near-infrared spectroscopy study
2014, Schizophrenia ResearchCitation Excerpt :Of these 4 core symptom categories, cognitive impairment has been demonstrated to result in the greatest difficulties in daily functioning, such as those related to working capacity and daily living. Cognitive regions that show marked impairment in schizophrenia include attention (vigilance), executive function, long-term and learning memory, working memory, and verbal fluency (Green, 1996; Rund and Borg, 1999; Green et al., 2000; Pantelis and Maruff, 2002; Sharma and Antonova, 2003). In a meta-analytic review by Green et al. (2000), the authors subdivided the functional outcome into three general categories; a) psychosocial skill acquisition, b) social problem solving/instrumental skills, and c) community/daily activities.
Decreased axial diffusivity within language connections: A possible biomarker of schizophrenia risk
2013, Schizophrenia ResearchCitation Excerpt :While there is evidence of progression, it has been suggested that the primary origin of brain anomalies is neurodevelopmental, predating any signs of illness (e.g., DeLisi, 1999; Lieberman, 1999; Pantelis et al., 2003). Schizophrenia is characterized by wide-spread cognitive (for review see Pantelis and Maruff, 2002), structural (reviewed in Shenton et al., 2001), and functional deficits (reviewed in Gur and Gur, 2010). Many of these abnormalities, including altered language function and lateralization, cortical volume deficits, and deficits in white matter (WM) integrity, are already detectable at first psychotic episode or first psychiatric hospitalization (e.g., DeLisi, 1999; Kasai et al., 2003; Peters et al., 2010; Melonakos et al., 2011).
Gray matter abnormalities in Major Depressive Disorder: A meta-analysis of voxel based morphometry studies
2012, Journal of Affective DisordersImproving working memory: Exploring the effect of transcranial random noise stimulation and transcranial direct current stimulation on the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
2011, Clinical NeurophysiologyCitation Excerpt :Dependent variables were the three outcome measures from the CogState battery (Maruff et al., 2009); the one card learning task, 1-back and 2-back working memory tasks. Validation studies of The CogState Research have been published and it has been used as a sensitive measure of cognitive change in a variety of disorders (Maruff et al., 2009; Falleti et al., 2006; Pantelis and Maruff, 2002; Coulston et al., 2007). In addition, there are minimal learning effects which make it ideal for repeat testing (Falleti et al., 2006).
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