The two-syndrome concept and neuroendocrinology of schizophrenia

Schizophrenia sometimes remits and sometimes responds to neuroleptic drugs but is a disease that also has a poor long-term outcome, sometimes including behavioral deterioration and intellectual decline. It is proposed that there are two components to pathology: a neurochemical component, perhaps associated with a change in D-2 DA receptors, which is potentially reversible and neuroleptic-responsive and a structural and probably irreversible component, which includes changes in structures bordering the temporal horn of the lateral ventricle and perhaps elsewhere in the brain.