In Search of Madness: Schizophrenia and Neuroscience, by Walter
Heinrichs. (2001). New York: Oxford University Press. 368 pp., $19.95.
In Search of Madness: Schizophrenia and Neuroscience is a
concise but thorough and even-handed review of the current status of
research in schizophrenia. It is an amalgam of research studies
distributed across numerous domains relevant to schizophrenia and
represents a much expanded version of his 1993 review article in the
American Psychologist. In particular, the book synthesizes
aspects of neuropsychological functioning, genetic, behavioral and
genetic markers, and the neurochemistry of schizophrenia with
information on etiology and overt symptoms of the illness. One
potentially controversial and central feature of this book is
Heinrich's argument that schizophrenia is not one single illness
but a heterogeneous syndrome. Heinrichs' rationale for conducting
research on the studies is to exemplify the discrepancies between what
researchers claim to be “common symptoms” of schizophrenia.
For each topic covered, Heinrichs and colleagues combined all relevant
research studies between 1980 and 1999 and performed a meta-analysis to
better explain the overall status of such research. For example,
regarding attention deficits on the Continuous Performance Test, he
grouped all studies together between 1980 and 1999 and matched the
studies according to patient sample (schizophrenia patients and
controls) and measure used (the Identical Pairs version of the CPT). He
then calculated the effect size to determine the variance attributed to
the identified construct. This meticulous method was employed for each
phenomenon that was examined.