Schizophrenia is one of our most important public health problems. It is a common, tragic, and devastating mental illness that typically strikes young people just when they are maturing into adulthood. Once it strikes, morbidity is high (60 percent of patients are receiving disability benefits within the first year after onset), (1) as is mortality (the suicide rate is 10 percent). (2) Despite the fact that people with schizophrenia are all around us (the lifetime prevalence is 1 percent worldwide), (2) …
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showed last 75 words of 1283 total
…or serotonin receptors. Although newer treatments such as the recently developed atypical neuroleptic drugs have already substantially improved the outcome of schizophrenia, they remain blunt instruments that have relatively generalized effects on neurotransmitter systems. As we identify more precisely the cascade of events leading to schizophrenia -- neurodevelopmental abnormalities that lead to neural misconnections that lead, in turn, to impaired cognitive processing -- we will also identify better and more specific targets for future treatment.