Childhood onset schizophrenia: support for a progressive neurodevelopmental disorder

Is schizophrenia a neurodevelopmental disorder?

Progressive loss of cerebellar volume in childhood-onset schizophrenia.

OBJECTIVE Childhood-onset schizophrenia is a severe and unremitting form of the disorder. Prospective brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies have found progressive loss of total cerebral volume during adolescence, primarily attributable to accelerated loss of cortical gray matter. Because there is evidence of cerebellar involvement in schizophrenia, the authors examined cerebellar volum...

Schizophrenia is (not simply) a neurodevelopmental disorder.

Schizophrenia affects almost 1% of the population at some point in their life. It occurs in all geographic areas in which studies have been done, although the outcome appears to be better in developing countries. In this editorial we will discuss the evidence, from epidemiological, genetic and neuroimaging studies, that suggests that schizophrenia is in part a neurodevelopmental disorder. Howev...

Is Adult ADHD a Childhood-Onset Neurodevelopmental Disorder? Evidence From a Four-Decade Longitudinal Cohort Study.

OBJECTIVE Despite a prevailing assumption that adult ADHD is a childhood-onset neurodevelopmental disorder, no prospective longitudinal study has described the childhoods of the adult ADHD population. The authors report follow-back analyses of ADHD cases diagnosed in adulthood, alongside follow-forward analyses of ADHD cases diagnosed in childhood, in one cohort. METHOD Participants belonged ...

High-functioning autism and schizophrenia: a comparison of an early and late onset neurodevelopmental disorder.

Autism and schizophrenia are separate neurodevelopmental disorders that share a number of interpersonal and cognitive deficits. The symptoms of autism first appear during early life while schizophrenic symptoms do not typically appear until adolescence at the earliest. Efforts have been made to characterize the pattern of cognitive function in both disorders, and certain resemblances have becom...