The cognitive neuropsychiatric approach to investigating the neurobiology of schizophrenia and other disorders

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Abstract

In this paper, we examine a cognitive neuropsychiatric approach to understanding neuropsychiatric disorders by examining recent data in schizophrenia. By understanding and applying this approach, we suggest that the processes underlying the neurobiology of a range of other psychiatric disorders can be understood. Further, an assessment of the brain–behaviour relationships through this emerging discipline provides testable models for further study, using a range of techniques including functional and other imaging techniques.

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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