Advanced in Schizophrenia Research and Treatment

A special issue of Biomedicines (ISSN 2227-9059). This special issue belongs to the section "Neurobiology and Clinical Neuroscience".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2024 | Viewed by 866

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Institute of Neuroscience of Castilla and León (INCYL) Laboratory, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
Interests: neurology and psychiatry; psycho- and neuropharmacology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder are disabling mental diseases that may remanifest as a recurrent psychosis. Therefore, their treatment with antipsychotic drugs is essential. Adverse effects (for example, movement disturbances, and metabolic and cardiac adverse effects) reduce patients’ adherence to medical treatment. In recent years, new antipsychotic drugs that interact with new specific receptors have been found and applied to the treatment of this disease. Have these new antipsychotic drugs made progress in the treatment of schizophrenic symptoms? Have they caused fewer adverse effects? Have they had a secure therapeutic effect? Has patients’ adherence become more reliable, and have their schizophrenic symptoms therefore been treated better? Have therapeutic measures outside of pharmacological treatment made progress in the medical treatment of these symptoms? Your research papers and comprehensive reviews regarding these questions are warmly welcomed.

Dr. Felix-Martin Werner
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • antipsychotic drug
  • olanzapine
  • risperidone
  • schizophrenia
  • schizoaffective disorder

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

17 pages, 468 KiB  
Article
Clinical and Sociodemographic Correlations with Neurological Soft Signs in Hospitalized Patients with Schizophrenia: A Preliminary Longitudinal Study
by Cristian Petrescu, Oana A. Mihalache, Crisanda Vilciu, Diana M. Petrescu, Gabriela Marian, Constantin A. Ciobanu and Adela M. Ciobanu
Biomedicines 2024, 12(4), 787; https://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines12040787 - 03 Apr 2024
Viewed by 461
Abstract
Schizophrenia is a severe, chronic neuropsychiatric disorder characterized by symptoms that profoundly impact behavior, cognition, perception, and emotions, leading to a reduced quality of life and physical impairment. Given the complexity of schizophrenia, there is a pressing need for clinical markers and tools [...] Read more.
Schizophrenia is a severe, chronic neuropsychiatric disorder characterized by symptoms that profoundly impact behavior, cognition, perception, and emotions, leading to a reduced quality of life and physical impairment. Given the complexity of schizophrenia, there is a pressing need for clinical markers and tools to predict its course, enhance disease staging, facilitate early intervention, improve differential diagnosis, and tailor individualized treatment approaches. Previous studies focused on the relationship between neurological soft signs (NSS) and factors such as age, illness duration, and symptomatology, indicating NSS as state markers improving in parallel with psychotic symptom remission or predicting treatment resistance. However, there is a lack of consensus on NSS assessment tools, hindering routine clinical monitoring despite diagnostic and prognostic potential. The present longitudinal study involved 81 psychiatric inpatients diagnosed with schizophrenia. Patients were assessed at three time points: baseline, 1 month, and 6 months. The examination included the use of scales to evaluate psychotic and neurological symptoms, as well as the identification of adverse extrapyramidal reactions caused by neuroleptic treatment. The progression of NSS was correlated to both the symptomatology and the sociodemographic data of the patients. The main findings from the present investigation revealed a statistical correlation between NSS and psychopathological symptoms, especially with negative symptoms of schizophrenia. However, it is important to note that neuroleptic side effects only had a limited impact on NSS. Therefore, instead of being linked to extrapyramidal symptoms caused by neuroleptics, NSS appears to be more frequently related with symptoms of schizophrenia. Our findings provide further support for their strong association with the course of schizophrenia, independent of treatment side effects, thus emphasizing their potential as reliable assessment tools in both research and clinical settings. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced in Schizophrenia Research and Treatment)
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