BACKGROUND Cognitive functioning in affective psychosis and schizoaffective disorder is much less studied compared with schizophrenia. AIMS To quantitatively undertake a meta-analysis of the available data that directly compares cognitive functioning across schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder and affective psychosis. METHOD Following a thorough literature review, 31 studies that compare...

OBJECTIVE There is increasing support toward the notion that schizophrenia and bipolar disorder share neurodevelopmental underpinnings, although areas of divergence remain. We set out to examine gray matter volume characteristics of child and adolescent offspring of patients with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder comparatively. METHOD In this 2-center study, magnetic resonance structural neur...

Schizophrenia is a major psychiatric disorder that has a massive, long-lasting negative impact on the patients as well as society. While positive symptoms (i.e., delusions and hallucinations), negative symptoms (i.e., anhedonia, social withdrawal), and cognitive impairments are traditionally considered the most prominent features of this disorder, the role of sleep and sleep disturbances has ga...

CONTEXT The clinical and etiologic relation between autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) and schizophrenia is unclear. The degree to which these disorders share a basis in etiology has important implications for clinicians, researchers, and those affected by the disorders. OBJECTIVE To determine whether a family history of schizophrenia and/or bipolar disorder is a risk factor for ASD. DESIGN, ...

...........................................................................................................10 CHAPTER ONE – INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................11 1.1.1 Overview of the Introduction Chapter .....................................................................................11 1.1.2 Categorical and Dimens...

BACKGROUND Schizophrenia patients and their parents have an increased risk of immune disorders compared to population controls and their parents. This may be explained by genetic overlap in the pathogenesis of both types of disorders. The purpose of this study was to investigate the genetic overlap between schizophrenia and three immune disorders and to compare with the overlap between schizoph...

CONTEXT Longitudinal studies indicate that a lower IQ score increases risk of schizophrenia. Preliminary evidence suggests there is no such effect for nonpsychotic bipolar disorder. To our knowledge, there are no prior population-based, longitudinal studies of premorbid IQ score and risk of developing severe depression requiring hospital admission. OBJECTIVES To investigate the association be...

INTRODUCTION Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is a member of the herpesviridae family that has a limbic and temporal gray matter tropism. It is usually latent in humans but has been associated with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and cognitive deficits in some populations. Hippocampal decreased volume and dysfunction play a critical role in these cognitive deficits. We hypothesized that CMV seropositivity...

OBJECTIVE The co-occurrence of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in adult patients with schizophrenia has been increasingly recognized. However, the rate of OCD comorbidity in adolescent schizophrenia patients has yet to be systematically evaluated. METHOD The rate of DSM-IV OCD was evaluated in 50 adolescent inpatients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. The severity of schizop...