Secondary Schizophrenia

Description

Schizophrenia may not be a single disease, but the result of a diverse set of related conditions. Modern neuroscience is beginning to reveal some of the genetic and environmental underpinnings of schizophrenia; however, an approach less well travelled is to examine the medical disorders that produce symptoms resembling schizophrenia. This book is the first major attempt to bring together the diseases that produce what has been termed 'secondary schizophrenia'. International experts from diverse backgrounds ask the questions: does this medical disorder, or drug, or condition cause psychosis? If yes, does it resemble schizophrenia? What mechanisms form the basis of this relationship? What implications does this understanding have for aetiology and treatment? The answers are a feast for clinicians and researchers of psychosis and schizophrenia. They mark the next step in trying to meet the most important challenge to modern neuroscience - understanding and conquering this most mysterious of human diseases.

Perminder S. Sachdev is Scientia Professor of Neuropsychiatry at the School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales, and Clinical Director of the Neuropsychiatric Institute (NPI), the Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney, Australia. Matcheri S. Keshavan is Vice Chair of Psychiatry, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massaachusetts, USA.

' ... this book provides a rich and comprehensive review of the many conditions know n to be associated with psychosis, which could be of great value to students and a resource for senior scientists in the field. it is thought-provoking and its treatments of provocative issues resulting from very recent research are timely and enjoyable. The book is particularly satisfying because it excels on so many levels. This includes the clear list-making organization of basic facts characteristic of the allopathic tradition, and the thoughtful attempt at integration of disparate findings into etiopathogenic explanations of signs and symptoms. Adding to this already very useful review of vast swathes of clinically oriented literature is the valiant and nuanced contextualization of otherwise typical textbook fare into the fundamental conceptual conundrm lurking at the heart of the entire book: what is schizophrenia.' The Journal of Psychological Medicine