With antipsychotic treatment and clinical improvement, these abnormalities partially normalize. The neuropharmacologic basis of these abnormalities, the effects of typical and atypical antipsychotics on EEG-sleep findings, and the relationship of these sleep findings to clinical features and other neurobiologic abnormalities in schizophrenic illness are being studied. There are several concepts of negative symptoms and mainline thinking about their nature has undergone much change over the past fifteen years. Studies into the pathophysiological basis of different components of negative symptoms and the impact of neuroleptic and atypical antipsychotic treatment on these different components of negative symptoms are issues that are specifically being investigated. Persons with schizophrenia exhibit very subtle deficits in information processing, and we are using this technique to study these deficits.
Schizophrenia causes well-documented abnormalities across a wide range of cognitive abilities.
Some persons with schizophrenia exhibit changes in brain structure, visible with neuroimaging technologies, such as magnetic resonance imaging. A critical part of the treatment of mental illness involves the monitoring how treatment affects the course of the illness. This project is setting up such monitoring mechanisms, partly in collaboration with the Patient Outcomes Research Team, of the University of Maryland. Cushing's disease, wherein abnormally high levels of cortisol cause a variety of pathological effects, provides an important model for mental illness, which also exhibit high cortisol levels. This project examines the cognitive dysfunction present in Cushing's disease and its relationship with brain changes revealed through magnetic resonance imaging.