Upper Rhine Valley Symposium on Schizophrenia “Does neuropsychiatry terminate the era of schizophrenia?”

There is an increasing awareness of the fact, that the ICD- and DSM-based nosological concepts in general psychiatry are insufficient not only for research purposes but also from a clinical diagnostic and therapeutic perspective. Presently, DSM-ord ICD-based psychiatric diagnoses generally represent umbrella terms focusing on patterns of phenotypical psychopathological presentations of different neuropsychiatric disorders rather than on neurophysiological pathomechanisms or etiologies. The concept of neuropsychiatry stands for a reform of psychiatric classification in which causal i.e. neuropsychiatric elements play a more important role in diagnosing and treating patients with different psychiatric syndromes. The implementation of an etiology based-diagnostic and therapeutic process could have revolutionizing consequences on psychiatry where disease classification presently is almost free of causal thinking.

In this symposium we will illustrate this rapidly evolving process based on different areas of research in which relevant progress is obvious over the last decade focusing on the classical disorder of psychiatry: schizophrenia.

In a joint controversy debate, the pros and cons of the term and concept of schizophrenia will discuss in depth the pitfalls of psychiatric and their relevant implications for research.