Psychotic Disorders: Comprehensive Conceptualization and Treatments

Psychotic Disorders: Comprehensive Conceptualization and Treatments emphasizes a dimensional approach to psychosis--one of the most fascinating manifestations of altered brain behavior--that cuts across a broad array of psychiatric diagnoses from schizophrenia to affective psychosis and organic disorders like epilepsy and dementias. Written by an international roster of over seventy leading experts in the field, this volume comprehensively reviews, critiques, and integrates available knowledge on the etiology, mechanisms, and treatments of psychotic disorders, and outlines ways forward in both research and clinical practice towards more objective, mechanistically-based definitions of psychotic disorders. Chapters address topics such as psychosis phenomenology, biomarkers and treatments, the overlaps and interfaces between psychiatric disorders within the psychosis dimension, and novel disease definitions. Furthermore, the volume incorporates findings on potential mechanisms, bridges between various system levels (i.e., genetic, epigenetic, molecular and cellular, brain circuit and function, psychological, social, environmental and cultural) and their interactions, as well as the potential role in causation and/or mediation in psychotic disorders. Finally, the volume outlines a broad array of treatment approaches, from the readily available (e.g., psychopharmacology, various modalities of psychotherapy) to the experimental (e.g., cognitive interventions, neuromodulation). With a concluding section of forward perspectives conjecturing future directions and related challenges, this book aspires to stimulate new knowledge, generate novel frameworks, and carry new directions forward on psychotic disorders.

Carol A. Tamminga, MD is Professor, Chairman of Psychiatry and Chief of Translational Neuroscience Research in Schizophrenia at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. She holds the Communities Foundation of Texas Chair in Brain Science along with the Lou and Ellen McGinley Distinguished Chair in Psychiatric Research. She directs clinical and preclinical research in schizophrenia focused on identifying disease mechanisms and on improving treatments. Dr. Tamminga has been the recipient of numerous federal and foundation grants, as well as Award in the field. She has served on the National Advisory Mental Health Council, NIMH and the Council of the National Institute of Drug Abuse. The goal of Dr. Tamminga's research is to examine and understand the mechanisms underlying schizophrenia, especially its most prominent symptoms, psychosis and memory dysfunction, in order to build rational treatments for the illness.

Elena I. Ivleva, MD, PhD is a psychiatrist and neuroscientist specializing in psychotic disorders. Dr. Ivleva completed her medical training, psychiatry residency and PhD in Neuroscience at the Voronezh State Medical Academy, Russia. She subsequently completed postdoctoral research fellowship in translational schizophrenia research, as well as psychiatry residency, at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas. Since 2012, Dr. Ivleva has been a faculty member at the Department of Psychiatry at UT Southwestern Medical Center. She is also a director of clinical and research Early Psychosis Program at UT Southwestern. Dr. Ivleva's research is focused on understanding neurobiological mechanisms of psychosis, and developing brain-based biomarkers for psychotic illness. The ultimate goal of her research is to develop objective, measurable biomarkers which could inform future diagnostic algorithms and mechanism-based treatments for psychotic disorders.

Ulrich Reininghaus, PhD, is Heisenberg Professor at the Department of Public Mental Health, Central Institute of Mental Health (CIMH), Mannheim, and a Visiting Professor at the Health Service and Population Research Department, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London. Professor Reininghaus has been awarded several competitive fellowships and personal grants for his work, including a Research Training Fellowship by the UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), an NIHR Postdoctoral Fellowship, a Veni grant by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), a ZonMw research programme grant, and most recently a Heisenberg Professorship by the German Research Foundation to establish the new Department of Public Mental Health at CIMH. He is also Associate Editor and commissions the state-of-the-art review series of the international peer-reviewed journal Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology.

Jim van Os MD, PhD, is Professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology and Chairman of the Division Neuroscience at Utrecht University Medical Centre, Utrecht, The Netherlands, and Visiting Professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology at the Institute of Psychiatry, London. He is on the editorial board of numerous European and US psychiatric journals and an Academic Editor at PLoS ONE. In 2011, he was elected member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW); in 2016 he became a Fellow at King's College London; and since 2014, he has appeared on the Thomson-Reuter Web of Science list of the worlds' "most influential scientific minds' of our time. He leads the Division Neuroscience at Utrecht University Medical Centre and is actively involved in mental health reform in the Netherlands as well as Science in Transition, a movement that works towards making scientific research more relevant and impactful.