The neuropathology of schizophrenia.
This review of brain changes in schizophrenia provides the neuropathologist with a conceptual framework to understand this disease. Numerous conflicting reports describe structural, functional, neurochemical, and neuropathological alterations in brains of schizophrenic patients. A core clinical manifestation of schizophrenia is disruption of thought; a mental process that is poorly localized in the brain and influenced by multiple neural systems. Schizophrenia has variable clinical presentations, natural history, and response to medication that imply a pathologically heterogenous group of diseases. Recent studies suggest that schizophrenia may involve cortical, limbic, and subcortical structures as well as multiple neurotransmitter systems. Schizophrenia may result from a perinatal insult in a genetically predisposed individual that produces neuronal alterations that manifest during final synaptic reorganization and myelination of early adulthood.
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Department of Pathology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA.
D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology; D001921:Brain / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology*; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology*; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology