Schizophrenia, 2nd Edition

Considerable advances in the understanding and progress of treatment of schizophrenia are reflected in this totally revised and updated second edition. In many respects, the field of schizophrenia research has changed dramatically since the first edition of this book. There are now several genes that appear to be valid susceptibility factors for illness, and these discoveries will very probably lead to a new understanding of causation and to new targets for therapeutic intervention. Likewise, new pharmacological treatments have emerged since the first edition, and much more clinical experience with the so-called ‘atypical antipsychotics’ has been acquired. The brain biology of schizophrenia has also matured considerably, with replicable molecular changes in the brain that implicate specific processes in synaptic function, and with much more sophisticated neuroimaging paradigms revealing patterns of abnormalities in specific functional neuronal networks. With these many recent developments in hand, the second edition of Schizophrenia is essentially a new work.