Schizophrenia: From brain morphology to psychopathology

Abstract

Ten years ago, Velakoulis, the author of a study cited in the present article, was appreciating that the role of functional imaging in schizophrenia research would involve collaboration of clinicians, imaging specialists, and neuropsychologists, and the past year's literature proves his point. Our review shows that structural and functional imaging in schizophrenia is still alive and well. In the past year, it has focused on changes in "at-risk" and first-episode schizophrenia populations and has been used by researchers to characterize phenotypes of patients with schizophrenia prior to including them in genetic research. A decade ago, O'Donovan and Owen were cautiously optimistic about future advances in finding susceptibility genes for schizophrenia, and this year's literature, including their review, proves that the massive efforts of research in the genetics of schizophrenia have started to pay off. An almost-obscure area 10 years ago, pharmacogenetics of schizophrenia is well represented in the past year and gives hope to the practicing clinicians who are eagerly waiting to understand patients' variability in antipsychotic drug response. These and additional areas are included in our review of schizophrenia literature in the past year.