Schizophrenia is a chronic mental disorder characterized by positive and negative symptoms. It was first identified in the 1890s and has genetic and environmental risk factors. Key aspects include diagnostic criteria, types of schizophrenia, implicated neurochemicals and neural pathways, pharmacological treatments including antipsychotics, and importance of psychosocial interventions and early intervention. Non-pharmacological management includes family therapy, CBT, and vocational rehabilitation.

1. SCHIZOPHRENIA-IN A NUTSHELL
• What is Schizophrenia?
• What are positive and negative symptoms?
• What is Crowe’s classification of
Schizophrenia?

2. Key points – a brief history
• Schizophrenia was first clearly identified in the 1890s.
• Its characteristic features were an early onset and a
chronic course.
• Kraepelin described two characteristic
psychopathological processes.
• Bleuler introduced the concept of primary and
secondary symptoms.
• Who coined the word Schizophrenia?
• What are the 4 As of Bleuler?
.

3. Schneider’s first-rank symptoms of
schizophrenia
• Thought insertion, withdrawal or broadcasting : The experience of one’s thoughts
being put into or taken out of one’s head, or broadcast to others. Collectively
known as ‘thought interference’
• Passivity experiences :Experience that one’s thoughts or actions are physically
being controlled by an external force: ‘made actions’
• Delusional perception :A normal perception followed suddenly by a seemingly
unrelated, fully formed delusion
• Echo de la pensée: Hallucination of a voice repeating one’s own thoughts Rare
• Running commentary Hallucination describing one’s current actions
• Third-person auditory hallucinations Voices describing patient as ‘he’ or ‘she’
• What is hallucination?
• What is delusion?

4. Well-established predictors of
Good outcome Poor outcome
outcome
Demographic Female • Married • Male • Single • developed
developing country country
Genetic Family history of mood Family history of schizophrenia
disorder Symptoms
Onset: Acute onset , Life event at Slow onset • Long duration of
onset untreated psychosis • Onset
under 17 years old
Psychosocial • Good response to treatment High expressed emotion •
• Substance misuse • Poor
Prompt treatment adherence to treatment
symptoms Good Schizoid traits • Negative
• premorbid adjustment symptoms • Obsessions •

5. Key points – genetics
Having a close relative with schizophrenia increases one’s own risk 15-fold.
Identical twins show a 45% concordance rate.
Individual vulnerability genes exist. Genes are each of small effect and act additively.
So far, 4– 6 susceptibility genes have been identified(neuregulin-1&dysbindin), some
of which also predispose to bipolar disorder. There are likely to be 15– 20 genes in all.
VCFS-22q11 deletion 1 copy(25%)
What are the prognostic factors in Schizophrenia?
What are the diagnostic criteria?
What are the types?
What are the genes causing Schizophrenia?(VCFS?)

6. Key points – developmental
theories and environmental
factors
• Early neurodevelopmental, non-genetic risk factors exist for schizophrenia.
• Birth complications increase the child’s risk of schizophrenia in later life
fourfold.
• Psychosocial risk factors are being re-established as important risk factors.
• Cannabis use appears to increase the risk of schizophrenia as well as
relapse.
• Evidence for specific gene– environment interactions is beginning to
emerge.
• Winter Births
• Post Viral
• Migration
• urbanization
• Faulty parenting-(Schism and skewed)
• What is the etiology of Schizophrenia?
• What are the risk factors for Schizophrenia?

7. Key points – neurochemistry
• The dopamine hypothesis remains the major neurochemical
hypothesis of schizophrenia.
• Positive symptoms are hypothesized to be due to increased activity
of the mesolimbic dopamine pathway.
• Negative symptoms are hypothesized to be due to decreased
activity of the mesocortical dopamine pathway.
• Altered glutamate activity may be involved in the pathophysiology
of negative and positive symptoms and cognitive impairments.
• Disturbances in the cholinergic and GABAergic systems have been
hypothesized to underlie cognitive impairments in schizophrenia.
• What are the neurochemicals implicated in Schizophrenia?
• What are the neural pathways implicated in Schizophrenia?
• .

8. Key points – pharmacological
treatment
• The depot forms of conventional and second-generation antipsychotics are useful
for patients who are non-adherent to their medications.
• Clozapine is the only second-generation antipsychotic that is effective for positive
symptoms resistant to conventional antipsychotics.
• Second-generation antipsychotics other than clozapine have become the first-line
treatments for acute psychotic episodes and maintenance therapy.
• Conventional and second-generation antipsychotics are relatively effective for
treating secondary, but not primary, negative symptoms.
• Conventional antipsychotics have limited effects on the cognitive impairments of
schizophrenia.
• Second-generation antipsychotics may have modest benefits for multiple cognitive
processes.
• Typical antipsychotics-DA(Se: EPS)
• Atypical antipsychotics-SDAs(Se: Metabolic syndrome)
• What are the drugs used to treat Schizophrenia?
• What are depot injections?

9. Key points – psychosocial interventions
and non-drug treatments
• Family interventions are known to be effective in reducing
relapse.
• Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) in addition to drug
treatment reduces persistent positive symptoms. CBT can
also abort relapses if targeted at early signs.
• Motivational intervention techniques can reduce street
drug use and enhance treatment compliance.
• Compliance therapy
• Vocational Rehabilitation
• Cognitive remediation reduces some cognitive deficits in
chronic schizophrenia.
• What are the non pharmacological ways of managing
Schizophrenia?

10. Key points – early intervention
Duration of untreated psychosis is usually 3– 6 months.
The longer the delay in treatment the worse the clinical
outcome.
Early detection has been shown to be possible.
Second-generation drugs are preferred.
Treatment of prodromal cases with cognitive-behavioural
or drug therapy may prevent or delay schizophrenia.
What is the importance of Duration of Untreated
psychosis?