Cognitive neurobiology of schizophreni

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Abstract
Summary Schizophrenia is a neurobiological developmental disorder of basic neuro-integrative functions, resulting in failures of cognitive selfregulation. Neurophysiological and psychophysiological dysfunctions should be considered in connection with the ubiquitous cognitive dysfunctions. Schizophrenic patients have problems with the integration of information, resulting in deficits of perceptual organization, and in ‘metacognitive’ deficits of executive functions in the area of behavior and experience. The biological basis of these cognitive functions is in the frontal cortex, but the primary dysfunction seems to be a subcortical one. Negative symptoms can be understood as a secondary exhaustion mechanism, and partly as an adaptive process, corresponding with energetic deficits in information processing. Psychophysiological studies of regional cerebral blood flow, positron emission tomography, electrophysiological recordings and measures of eye tracking point to frontal dysfunction and hypoactivation in patients with negative symptoms. This agrees well with the results of cognitive studies. Psychophysiologists and cognitive psychologists are studying different aspects of the same systems disorder.