Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a chronic psychiatric illness characterized by psychosis, "negative symptoms," apathy and withdrawal, subtle cognitive deficits, a lack of insight, and deterioration of functioning. Although the etiology has not been fully established, schizophrenia clearly has a genetic component. Abnormalities of cellular distribution have been observed in postmortem brain, and abnormal patterns of brain activation have been observed in neuroimaging studies. Antipsychotic medication controls most symptoms, although patients often remain disabled by the illness and at risk for relapse. Because the newer antipsychotics seem to be more effective for cognitive deficits and for apathy their use has facilitated advances in psychosocial rehabilitation of individuals with this illness.