Paolo Brambilla – författare

Bipolar Disorder Vulnerability: Perspectives from Pediatric and High-Risk Populations synthesizes our current understanding of high-risk and pediatric populations to aid readers in identifying markers of vulnerability for the development of bipolar disorder, with an ultimate goal of the development of drug targets and other therapies for early diagnosis and treatment. The book provides readers with an understanding of biological and environmental factors influencing disease manifestation that will aid them in defining discrete clinical stages and, importantly, establish an empirical basis for the application of novel therapeutics in a phase of illness during which specific treatments could more effectively alter disease course.

Whereas most of the literature available on the pathophysiological mechanisms of bipolar disorder focuses on chronically ill adult individuals, this represents the only book that specifically examines pediatric and high-risk populations. An estimated 30 to 60 percent of adult bipolar disorder patients have their disease onset during childhood, with early-onset cases representing a particularly severe and genetically loaded form of the illness.

This book provides a comprehensive review of new developments in the study of language processing and related neural networks in schizophrenia by addressing the complex link between psychopathology, language and evolution at different levels of analysis.

Psychopathological symptoms in schizophrenia are mainly characterized by thought and language disorders, which are strictly intertwined. In particular, language is the distinctive dimension of human beings and is ontologically related to brain development. Although normal at the levels of segmental phonology and morphological organization, the speech of patients suffering from schizophrenia is often characterized by flattened intonation and word-finding difficulties. Furthermore, research suggests that the superior temporal gyrus and specific prefrontal areas which support language in humans are altered in people with schizophrenia.

Brambilla and Marini bring together international contributors to explore the link between brain evolution and the psychopathological features of schizophrenia, with a focus on language and its neural underpinnings.

Divided into three sections the book covers:

• brain evolution and language phylogenesis• brain abnormalities in schizophrenia • psychopathology and schizophrenia.

This theoretical approach will appeal to professionals including clinical psychologists, cognitive neuroscientists, neuropsychiatrists, neuropsychologists, neurolinguists, and researchers considering the links between brain evolution, language and psychopathology in schizophrenia.

This book provides a comprehensive review of new developments in the study of language processing and related neural networks in schizophrenia by addressing the complex link between psychopathology, language and evolution at different levels of analysis.

Psychopathological symptoms in schizophrenia are mainly characterized by thought and language disorders, which are strictly intertwined. In particular, language is the distinctive dimension of human beings and is ontologically related to brain development. Although normal at the levels of segmental phonology and morphological organization, the speech of patients suffering from schizophrenia is often characterized by flattened intonation and word-finding difficulties. Furthermore, research suggests that the superior temporal gyrus and specific prefrontal areas which support language in humans are altered in people with schizophrenia.

Brambilla and Marini bring together international contributors to explore the link between brain evolution and the psychopathological features of schizophrenia, with a focus on language and its neural underpinnings.

Divided into three sections the book covers:

• brain evolution and language phylogenesis• brain abnormalities in schizophrenia • psychopathology and schizophrenia.

This theoretical approach will appeal to professionals including clinical psychologists, cognitive neuroscientists, neuropsychiatrists, neuropsychologists, neurolinguists, and researchers considering the links between brain evolution, language and psychopathology in schizophrenia.

This book presents state of the art knowledge on the psychopathology, clinical symptomatology, biology, and treatment of hallucinations in patients with psychoses and affective disorders. The opening section describes and examines the origins of the hallucinatory symptoms associated with schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, and drug- or substance-induced psychoses. In addition, progress in understanding of hallucinations in children and adolescents and chronic hallucinatory disorder is reviewed, and the value of a Research Domain Criteria approach in elucidating the emergence of auditory hallucinations is explained. The biological basis of hallucinations is then closely scrutinized with reference to recent genetic research, neurochemical studies, and functional and structural neuroimaging data. Outcomes of a meta-analysis of diffusion tensor imaging studies regarding the association between white matter integrity and auditory verbal hallucinations are highlighted. The closing chaptersfocus on the roles of drug treatment and electric and magnetic brain stimulation techniques. The book will be of wide interest to psychiatrists and clinical psychologists.