Overview Research return to list of focus groups
Researchers in the Schizophrenia Focus Group study the manifestations, causes and innovative treatments for schizophrenia, a serious, chronic and debilitating neuropsychiatric disorder that affects approximately one percent of the worlds population. Available medications treat only the positive symptom complex of this diverse, multigenic disorder frequently leaving the cognitive, affective and social impairments of the disease
unaffected. There appear to be three primary challenges for the future in schizophrenia research that are being actively pursued by focus group members. The first challenge is to identify the molecular and/or genetic defect that plays a central role in the ontogeny of the disease. A second major challenge will be the integration of the new molecular/genetic information into developing new treatments for schizophrenia that will replace the antiquated antipsychotic medications currently being used to alleviate schizophrenic symptoms. The final challenge for investigators will be to translate the molecular/genetic defect identified as the main pathophysiological cause of the disease into a functional context to gain a better understanding of how the symptoms of the disease of schizophrenia develop. This final set of investigations will have great need for new animal models of the disease and the ability to move this information from the bench to the clinical arena expediently.