The case of a 28-year-old woman with paranoid schizophrenia is reported who presented with erotomania and who had injured her external genitals in an attempt to stop coenaesthetic dysaesthesias. The implications of the symptoms are discussed with reference to relevant literature (German J Psychiatry 2005:8:38-41).

The present study was carried out to test our hypothesis that linguistic competence may importantly determine the manifest symptomatology as well as type of schizophrenia and neurosis. A test of linguistic competence constructed by us after two tryouts and consisting of eight subtests, namely colour naming, naming filial relationships and household objects, TAT (mean lengh of utterance and tota...

In the last years, serotonin (5-HT) has been related with the pathophysiology of several psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia. Thus, genes related to the serotonergic (5-HTergic) system are good candidate genes for schizophrenia. The rate-limiting enzyme of 5-HT synthesis is tryptophan hydroxylase 2 (TPH2). Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the regulatory regions of TPH2 gene ...

Dopamine (DA) has been implicated in the pathophysiol-ogy of several psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia. Thus, genes related to the dopaminergic (DAergic) system are good candidate genes for schizophrenia. One of receptors of the DA receptor system is dopa-mine receptor 5 (DRD5). Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the regulatory regions of DRD5 gene may affect gene expression...

Catatonic schizophrenia can be distinguished from paranoid schizophrenia by prominent behavioral and motor anomalies. As demonstrated in recent imaging studies, behavioral symptoms may be related to dysfunction in the ventral prefrontal cortex. However, the neuropsychological correlates of ventral prefrontal cortical dysfunction remain unclear. In an exploratory study, we investigated eight pat...

To investigate a possible involvement of expanded triplet repeats of genome in the genomes of patients with endogenous psychoses, we examined a CAG repeat polymorphism in the coding region of the KCNN3 gene in schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder and controls of the Japanese population. There were no significant differences in the CAG repeat number of longer or shorter alle...

Annual age-standardised rates for first contacts with psychiatric services in the Aberdeen area from 1969 to 1984 were calculated for schizophrenia, paranoid states, reactive psychoses, all affective psychoses, mania, and depressive neuroses. Highly significant declines occurred in the diagnosis of schizophrenia and of depressive neuroses. No concomitant increase occurred. It is concluded that ...

BACKGROUND The categories of functional psychoses build on views of influential professionals. There have long been four main categories - affective, schizophrenic, schizoaffective/cycloid/reactive/polymorphic, and delusional/paranoid psychoses. The last three are included in "psychotic disorders". However, this dichotomy and the distinctions between categories may have been over-estimated and ...

BACKGROUND The exact cerebral structural and functional mechanisms under the auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) in schizophrenia are still unclear. The Deutsch "high-low" word illusion might trigger attentional responses mimicking those under AVHs. METHODS We therefore have invited 16 patients with first-episode, paranoid schizophrenia, and 16 age- and gender-matched healthy volunteers to ...

CONTEXT Paranoid delusions are a common symptom of a range of psychotic disorders. A variety of psychological mechanisms have been implicated in their cause, including a tendency to jump to conclusions, an impairment in the ability to understand the mental states of other people (theory of mind), an abnormal anticipation of threat, and an abnormal explanatory style coupled with low self-esteem....