Frontiers in Neuroscience, January 27th, 2011: Emory's Dr. Elaine Walker on "Neurodevelopmental Mechanisms in the Emergence of Psychosis"
Psychotic disorders like schizophrenia affect about 5% of people and often result in life-long disability. Identifying at-risk individuals and predicting disease onset are crucial, and present a challenge to the development of preventative treatments. Understanding the biological mechanisms underlying psychosis are also extremely important in identifying risk factors and designing treatments. Because psychotic disorders are so disabling and usually irreversible, research interests in this field have shifted toward prevention and early intervention. Subtle pre-clinical deficits in psychosocial and neurocognitive functioning have been reported for many years and are now being extensively studied. Elucidating this pre-illness state, known as the “prodromal” period, is one area of research for Dr. Elaine Walker, the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Emory University. Dr. Walker spoke at the Frontiers in Neuroscience Seminar Series on Friday, January 27 th , ...