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Unawareness in schizophrenia: Neuropsychological and neuroanatomical findings
Author(s) -
PIA LORENZO,
TAMIETTO MARCO
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
psychiatry and clinical neurosciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.609
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1440-1819
pISSN - 1323-1316
DOI - 10.1111/j.1440-1819.2006.01576.x
Subject(s) - anosognosia , schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , neuropsychology , psychology , frontal lobe , disease , mechanism (biology) , neuroscience , psychiatry , cognitive psychology , medicine , cognition , pathology , philosophy , epistemology
The lack of insight in schizophrenia has so far been interpreted as a primary symptom of the illness, namely a defensive mechanism rather than a neurologically‐based condition. However, recent findings have emphasized its relationship with damage to specific brain areas as well as the domain specificity in which it may occur. This supports a neuropsychological interpretation of the lack of insight in schizophrenia. The present article reviews the foregoing data, and takes into account the most relevant anatomo‐clinical results. There is evidence that the lack of insight in schizophrenia may occur as a neurological disease per se following brain damage that seems related to frontal lobe areas. Additionally, it could either be related to all aspects of the disease or be domain‐specific, occurring for one kind of symptom but not for others. These data indicate several analogies with the phenomenon called anosognosia for a neurological deficit.