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Competing Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

The correlation of formal thought disorder (FTD) symptoms and subsyndromes with neuropsychological dimensions is as yet unclear. Evidence for a dysexecutive syndrome and semantic access impairments has been discussed in positive FTD, albeit focusing mostly on patients with schizophrenia. We investigated the correlation of the full range of positive and negative as well as subjective and objective FTD with neuropsychological domains in different patient groups. Patients with ICD-10 schizophrenia (n = 51), depression (n = 51), and bipolar mania (n = 18), as well as healthy subjects (n = 60), were interviewed with the Rating Scale for the Assessment of Objective and Subjective Formal Thought and Language Disorder (TALD) and assessed using a multidimensional neuropsychological test battery (executive function, semantic and lexical verbal fluency, attention, working memory, and abstract thinking). Partial correlation analysis, controlling for age and word knowledge, revealed significant results for the objective positive FTD dimension and executive dysfunctions. Objective negative FTD was associated with deficits in lexico-semantic retrieval, as well as attention and working memory dysfunctions. The results suggest that different neuropsychological substrates correlate with the multidimensional and phenomenologically different FTD syndromes. FTD is a complex, multidimensional syndrome with a variety of neuropsychological impairments, which should be accounted for in future studies investigating the pathogenesis of FTD., (© 2016 S. Karger AG, Basel.)

Background: There is now robust evidence that schizophrenia is associated with an increased risk of violence. Across Europe, the numbers of forensic hospital beds have dramatically increased largely due to admissions of men with schizophrenia., Objective: This article critically reviews the extant literature on schizophrenia and violence., Material and Methods: A systematic review of the literature was carried out., Results: People with schizophrenia are at increased risk, as compared to the general population, to be convicted for violent crimes because they are more likely to engage in aggressive behaviour towards others. While psychotic symptoms explain aggressive behaviour during acute episodes, they do not explain such behaviour at other stages of the illness or prior to onset of illness. Three distinct phenotypes of offenders with schizophrenia have been identified: individuals with a childhood onset of conduct disorder who display antisocial and aggressive behaviour both before and after schizophrenia onset, individuals with no history of conduct problems who begin engaging in aggressive behaviour at the onset of illness, and individuals who engage in a severe physical assault after many years of illness. Little is known about the aetiology of the three types of offenders and about the neural mechanisms that initiate and maintain these forms of behaviour., Conclusion: Mental health services need to assess the risk of violence among patients with schizophrenia and provide treatments that directly target antisocial and aggressive behaviour.

Background: Schizophrenia is the collective term for an exclusively clinically diagnosed, heterogeneous group of mental disorders with still obscure biological roots. Based on the assumption that valuable information about relevant genetic and environmental disease mechanisms can be obtained by association studies on patient cohorts of ≥ 1000 patients, if performed on detailed clinical datasets and quantifiable biological readouts, we generated a new schizophrenia data base, the GRAS (Göttingen Research Association for Schizophrenia) data collection. GRAS is the necessary ground to study genetic causes of the schizophrenic phenotype in a 'phenotype-based genetic association study' (PGAS). This approach is different from and complementary to the genome-wide association studies (GWAS) on schizophrenia., Methods: For this purpose, 1085 patients were recruited between 2005 and 2010 by an invariable team of traveling investigators in a cross-sectional field study that comprised 23 German psychiatric hospitals. Additionally, chart records and discharge letters of all patients were collected., Results: The corresponding dataset extracted and presented in form of an overview here, comprises biographic information, disease history, medication including side effects, and results of comprehensive cross-sectional psychopathological, neuropsychological, and neurological examinations. With >3000 data points per schizophrenic subject, this data base of living patients, who are also accessible for follow-up studies, provides a wide-ranging and standardized phenotype characterization of as yet unprecedented detail., Conclusions: The GRAS data base will serve as prerequisite for PGAS, a novel approach to better understanding 'the schizophrenias' through exploring the contribution of genetic variation to the schizophrenic phenotypes.

Background: Knowledge of when and how to implement treatments to prevent criminal offending among people with schizophrenia is urgently needed., Aims: To identify opportunities for interventions to prevent offending among men with schizophrenic disorders by tracking their histories of offending and admissions to hospital., Method: We examined 232 men with schizophrenic disorders discharged from forensic and general psychiatric hospitals. Data were collected from participants, family members and official records., Results: More than three-quarters (77.8%) of the forensic patients had previously been admitted to general psychiatric services; 24.3% of the general psychiatric patients had a criminal record. Offences had been committed by 39.8% of the forensic patients and 10.8% of the general psychiatric patients before their first admission to general psychiatry, and after their first admission these 59 patients committed 195 non-violent and 59 violent offences. Subsequently, 49 of them committed serious violent offences that led to forensic hospital admission. The offenders were distinguished by a pervasive and stable pattern of antisocial behaviour evident from at least mid-adolescence., Conclusions: General psychiatry requires resources in order to prevent criminal offending among a subgroup of patients with schizophrenic disorders.

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A response by S. Hodgins and R. Müller-Isberner to a letter to the editor about their article related to the interventions of cognitive-behaviour in schizophrenia is presented.