Core of schizophrenia: estrangement, dementia or neurocognitive disorder?

Psychopathology
Annick Urfer-ParnasJ Parnas

Abstract

The recent literature frequently represents schizophrenia as a deteriorating neurocognitive process similar to organic degenerative dementia. This study addresses the following questions: (1) Did the classic authors equate degenerative dementia with schizophrenia? (2) Is there empirical evidence pointing to a close similarity between schizophrenia and organic dementia? (3) Does empirical evidence support the view that intellectual impairment and/or more specific neuropsychological dysfunctions are core features of schizophrenia? The classic authors agreed that the intellectual dysfunctions were most likely a consequence rather than a primary, causal factor in the manifestation of schizophrenia despite their consensus on the assumption of its neurobiological origins. Rather, they considered impairments of intelligence and neurocognition as an expression of pseudodementia, i.e. a dementia-like clinical picture caused by a weakening of motivation. The empirical data from the draft, high-risk birth cohort and clinical samples show a low IQ and a variety of neurocognitive dysfunctions in schizophrenia. These findings are far from universal since substantial proportions of patients do not show deficits. In addition, the empirical mor...Continue Reading

Citations

Apr 6, 2012·Der Nervenarzt·F U LangM Jäger
Sep 24, 2010·Psychological Medicine·J W CarterS A Mednick
Jul 21, 2011·Schizophrenia Bulletin·Josef Parnas
Feb 7, 2013·Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience·Hiromi WatanabeRyuichiro Hashimoto
Feb 9, 2012·The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry·Shifu XiaoMingyuan Zhang

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