Dear Colleagues:
Welcome to the April issue of Innovations in Clinical Neuroscience. In this issue, we offer two interesting articles that touch on schizophrenia. In a review article by Spiegel et al entitled “Neurosarcoidosis and the Complexity in its Differential Diagnoses,” the authors review an unusual neurological disorder, neurosarcoidosis, that can present with similar symptoms as schizophrenia. The authors review the evaluation and work-up of neurosarcoidosis and discuss the differential diagnoses of these psychotic symptoms. A clinical vignette is also included for illustrative purposes.
Following this, Shrivastava et al present the findings in their study, “Baseline Serum Prolactin in Drug-naive, First-episode Schizophrenia and Outcome at Five Years: Is it a Predictive Factor?” The authors studied drug-naïve patients with schizophrenia in order to assess the relationships between serum prolactin and psychopathology and general functioning. The authors conclude that baseline serum prolactin levels in drug-naive patients with schizophrenia may be used for long-term prognosis, but are not reliable indicators of psychopathology and prognosis in the short term.
I am also pleased to present two excellent columns in this issue. In this month’s The Interface, Sansone and Sansone examine the prevalence and intensity of grief reactions among physicians in response to patient death in their article “Physician Grief with Patient Death.” And Harvey examines the current research literature on cognitive enhancement in psychiatric patients, focusing on new developments that separate previous less successful efforts from recent successes, in his article “Cognitive Remediation in Severe Mental Illness.”
As always, we hope you enjoy the issue and welcome your feedback.
Sincerely,
Amir Kalali, MD
Editor, Innovations in Clinical Neuroscience
