Negative Schizophrenic Symptoms: Pathophysiology and Clinical Implications (Progress in Psychiatry) - Hardcover

This book critically discusses the current status of negative schizophrenic symptoms with regard to their conceptualization, pathophysiology, etiology, and treatment. It discusses the validity of various competing concepts; reviews current biochemical, structural, and developmental theories to explain negative symptoms; outlines pharmacological and other treatment approaches; and delineates promising areas for future research. In the first section of the book, the concepts and clinical features of the negative-symptom syndrome are discussed, and the various rating instruments employed to measure this construct are critcally reviewed. In the next section, contributors review various biochemical hypotheses formulated to explain negative symptoms. Data implicating dopamine deficiency, cholinergic hyperfunction, and noradrenergic excess/deficiency in the production of negative symptoms are presented and neuro-endocrine abnormalities associated with negative symptoms are reviewed. Data on various structural abnormalities in schizophrenia as they pertain to the presence of the negative syndrome are reviewed. In the final chapter, the authors inquire as to how the various concepts and pathophysiological theories of the negative-symptom construct might be integrated.

John F. Greden, M.D., is Rachel Upjohn Professor of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, Chair of the Department of Psychiatry, Senior Research Scientist at the Mental Health Research Institute, and Director of The University of Michigan Depression Center at The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan.