Schizophrenia – History, definitions, and diagnosis

Schizophrenia cannot be understood by counting symptoms (such as hallucinations, delusions, etc.), but rather by recognizing a pattern of change in the structure of an individual’s sense of self.⁵ This pattern, or Gestalt, suggests symptoms are not mutually independent bu…

References:

1.Jablensky A. The diagnostic concept of schizophrenia: its history, evolution, and future prospects. Dialogues Clin Neurosci 2010; 12: 271–287.

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3.Kendler KS. Kahlbaum, Hecke…

Bleuler reconceptualized Kraepelin’s original idea by adding to its scope of clinical illnesses which did not evolve into the kind of ‘terminal state’ of deterioration, considered by Kraepelin to be a defining feature of the disease.¹ Bleuler introduced a fundamental dist…

References:

1.Jablensky A. The diagnostic concept of schizophrenia: its history, evolution, and future prospects. Dialogues Clin Neurosci 2010; 12: 271–287.

2.Tandon R, Nasrallah HA, Keshavan KS. Schizophrenia, “just the facts” 4: clinical features and conceptualization. …

References:

1.Leucht S, Siafis S, McGrath JJ et al. Schizophrenia. Nat Rev Dis Primers 2025; 11: 83.

2.Tandon R, Nasrallah HA, Keshavan KS. Schizophrenia, “just the facts” 4: clinical features and conceptualization. Schizophr Res 2009; 110: 1–23.

3.Jablensky A. Schizophre…

While the three-dimensional model of positive, negative, and disorganization symptoms is the most popular, it has been criticized as too simplistic and more complex models have been proposed; however, there is no consensus as to the number and nature of dimensions necessa…

References:

1.Kendler KS & Mishara AL. The prehistory of Schneider’s first-rank symptoms: texts from 1810 to 1932. Schizophr Bull 2019; 45: sbz047.

2.Nordgaard J. The diagnostic status of first-rank symptoms. Schizophr Bull 2008; 34: 137–154.

3.Peralta V, Cuesta MJ. Schne…

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1.Hur JW, Kwon JS, Lee TY, Park S. The crisis of minimal self-awareness in schizophrenia: a meta-analytic review. Schizophr Res 2014; 152: 58–64.

2.Raballo A, Monducci E, Ferrara M, et al. Developmental vulnerability to psychosis: Selective aggregation of basi…

References:

1.Sandsten KE, Nordgaard J, Parnas J. Disorder of selfhood in schizophrenia: A symptom or a gestalt? Psychopathology 2022; 55: 273–281.

2.Raballo A, Henriksen MG, Poletti M, Parnas J. “Schizophrenia, consciousness, and the self” Twenty years later: revisiting …

The schizotypal personality traits broadly correspond to the positive, negative and disorganized dimensions observed in schizophrenia. The personality traits include positive (cognitive-perceptual), such as magical thinking, unusual perceptual experiences, ideas of refere…

For individuals with psychotic spectrum disorders, including schizophrenia, multiple genetic liabilities (including diverse CNVs) and environmental exposures (biological and social) interact to alter neurodevelopmental trajectories.^4,8,11

Abbreviations: CNV=copy number va…

Neurodevelopmental aberrations in schizophrenia are largely mediated by numerous common variants of small effect, alongside CNVs with larger effect sizes. These CNVs have also been associated with conditions such as autism, ADHD, and bipolar disorder, supporting the conce…