Perceptual Evidence of CNS Dysfunction in Schizophrenia

Abstract

Introduction The division of opinion is most clear in child psychiatry where workers such as Bender^5,6 and Pasamanick and Knobloch²³ have offered evidence supporting the view that organismic factors make major contributions to the development of serious behavioral disturbance. Thus, Bender has stated that physiologic factors are primary in the production of childhood schizophrenia and that, although experiences after birth may be significant, the schizophrenic disorder is "determined before birth and activated by a physiological crisis such as birth".^* Further, she has indicated that the psychological problems which have dominated the clinicians' thinking are "secondary" to a primary neurologic defect.⁵ Pasamanick and Knobloch have offered epidemiologic evidence for the view that reproductive insults of varying kinds are "potent precursors of neuropsychiatric disorder".† In contrast, representative of the interpersonal viewpoint are Kanner,¹⁵ Sullivan,²⁸ Bateson, et al,¹ and Boatman and Szurek