Schizophrenia bulletin
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Schizophrenia bulletin · Jan 1996
ReviewPsychosis and violence: the case for a content analysis of psychotic experience.
There has been a great deal of debate about the dangers psychiatric patients pose to the general population. Recent studies appear to confirm a moderate but reliable association between mental illness and violence. The nature of this association, however, is unresolved. ⋯ The content and themes of a psychotic patient's delusion or hallucination often imply a specific course of violent action. Unlike studies of associations between violence and broad categories of subject characteristics (e.g., mental illness), an analysis of the association between violence and the content and themes of psychotic symptoms could be much more informative. Conceivably, such an analysis could identify not only psychiatric patients at risk for committing violence but also those individuals who are at risk for becoming targets of their violence.
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Schizophrenia bulletin · Jan 1993
ReviewThe genetics of schizophrenia: a current, genetic-epidemiologic perspective.
In the "Special Report on Schizophrenia" published in the Schizophrenia Bulletin in 1987, the genetic basis of schizophrenia was reviewed. Here, we provide our perspective on the current status of this area of investigation, focusing largely but not exclusively on recent findings. Methodologically rigorous family studies have now clearly shown that schizophrenia substantially aggregates in families. ⋯ However, just as linkage analysis of schizophrenia should not be excessively embraced as the only form of viable genetic research in schizophrenia, it also shouldn't be prematurely spurned. If one or several genes of major effect exist for schizophrenia, large samples using new statistical and laboratory methodologies have a good chance of detecting them. The authors thus recommend a balanced research approach to the genetics of schizophrenia that includes traditional methods of family, twin, and adoption studies as well as a major effort in large-sample linkage studies.
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Schizophrenia bulletin · Jan 1989
ReviewGenetic linkage in schizophrenia: perspectives from genetic epidemiology.
Research on the genetic epidemiology of schizophrenia is briefly and selectively reviewed. The following three salient features of schizophrenia that represent challenges to the design of linkage studies are identified: (1) The analysis of twin and family data has consistently failed to identify a single major gene effect upon schizophrenia risk; (2) the ascertainment of multiplex families does not guarantee the sampling of families who are segregating for the major gene even if a major gene effect exists; and (3) environmental influences appear to play an essential role in the etiology of at least some forms of schizophrenia. The implications of these features for the design of linkage studies in schizophrenia are discussed.
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This issue of the Schizophrenia Bulletin provides a forum for the presentation of early results and speculative hypotheses based on the application of molecular genetic methods for linkage studies in schizophrenia. Contributors were given the freedom to explore the historical and theoretical perspectives on the genetics of schizophrenia. ⋯ In this overview, the epidemiologic evidence for a genetic factor in schizophrenia and recent linkage studies are briefly discussed. In addition, the potential and limitations of different linkage strategies in schizophrenia are examined.