IMPORTANCE Community functioning is a core component of the functional deficits in schizophrenia, yet little systematic research on the origins of these functional deficits has been performed. OBJECTIVES To examine 3 key domains of community functioning--social activity, independent behavior, and functioning in school or work--before first hospitalization for schizophrenia and to determine wh...

The association between polymorphisms of glutathione-related enzyme (GST) genes and the risk of schizophrenia has been investigated in many published studies. However, their results were inconclusive. Therefore, we performed a meta-analysis to explore the association between the GSTM1, GSTT1, and GSTP1 polymorphisms and the risk of schizophrenia. Twelve case-control studies were included in thi...

Schizophrenia is a debilitating and complex mental disorder with a prevalence of approximately 1% worldwide. The etiology remains unclear, despite massive research efforts. Hyperactive dopaminergic signal transduction in the central nervous system is suggested to be involved in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia (the dopamine hypothesis). The dopamine D(2)-receptor (DRD2) gene is thus a promi...

BACKGROUND Psychotic experiences are common in the general population, and predict later psychotic illness. Much less is known about negative symptoms in the general population. METHOD This study utilized a sample of 4,914 Israel-born individuals aged 25-34 years who were screened for psychopathology in the 1980's. Though not designed to specifically assess negative symptoms, data were availa...

OBJECTIVE GSK3β is a key gene in neurodevelopment, and also an important target of antipsychotics. Several lines of evidence including association and gene expression studies have suggested GSK3β as a susceptibility gene for schizophrenia, but the underlying genetic mechanism is still unknown. In this study, we test whether the genetic variants in GSK3β contribute to the risk of schizophrenia i...

Stålberg, G. 2013. Vulnerability and Social Functioning in Schizophrenia. Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Medicine 943. 71 pp. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. ISBN 978-91-554-8789-8. This thesis offers a broad approach in elucidating biological risk factors, as well as psychological and social functioning in schizophrenia. The aims are as fo...

ISSN 1758-2008 10.2217/NPY.11.42 © 2011 Future Medicine Ltd Neuropsychiatry (2011) 1(5), 457–466 Summary The most important risk factor for schizophrenia is a positive family history, but only a minority of people with schizophrenia have an affected relative and no single gene of large effect has been consistently associated with psychosis risk. Epidemiological research has elucidated putative ...

Many observational studies have shown elevated blood CRP levels in schizophrenia compared with controls, and one population-based prospective study has reported that elevated plasma CRP levels were associated with late- and very-late-onset schizophrenia. Furthermore, several clinical studies have reported the efficacy of anti-inflammatory drugs on the symptoms in patients with schizophrenia. Ho...

BACKGROUND The fusiform gyrus (occipitotemporal gyrus) is thought to be critical for face recognition and may possibly be associated with impaired facial recognition and interpretation of facial expression in schizophrenia. of postmortem studies have suggested that fusiform gyrus volume is reduced in schizophrenia, but there have been no in vivo structural studies of the fusiform gyrus in schiz...

Schizophrenia has been associated with deficits in visual perception and processing, but there is little information about their temporal development and stability. We assessed visual form perception using the Rorschach Comprehensive System (RCS) in 23 individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis, 15 individuals with recent onset schizophrenia (< or =2 years since onset), and 34 with chronic...