Vol 8, No 1 Diagnosis and Management of Schizophrenic Disorders
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ear Colleagues, This issue is devoted to the 15th Bio-Clinical Interface Conference, the Colloque de Rouffach, held in Rouffach, France, from September 28 to October 1, 2005.The theme was "Diagnosis and management of schizophrenic disorders." For four days, a great num- ber of outstanding scientists discussed almost all the relevant aspects of current research in schizophrenia, under the presidency of Prof Nancy Andreasen. Many of these lectures are contained in this issue; others will appear in coming issues of Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience. The sessions of the Colloque were divided up into a series of topics, as outlined below. • In most medical disciplines, animal models are used to better understand the physio- logical abnormalities in the various disorders, and to find new treatment options. New models and new methods were presented. • The relationship between schizophrenia and neurological disorders, which frequently involve schizophrenic symptoms, can contribute to the understanding of the patho- physiology of the disorder, and can serve as a model for it. • Clinical heterogeneity was discussed in two sessions covering topics from prodromal states in adolescents to schizophrenia in late life. • Many lectures were presented on technical topics such as functional magnetic reso- nance imaging (fMRI), magnetoencephalography (MEG), electroencephalography (EEG), genetics, pharmacogenetics, pharmacogenomics, and neuropathology. Despite the great advances made in these technologies, many questions still remain to be answered, and the results have so far not been very conclusive, indicating that there is a still long way to go in the understanding of schizophrenia. • The  management  of  schizophrenia  in  clinical  practice  needs  interdisciplinary approaches, examples of which can be seen in the US MATRICS and the German Research Network projects. • Treatments with new antipsychotics are very promising, but still not optimal. We need to consider more than psychopathological outcome variables, and the search for new treatment strategies which target the true cause of the disorder is becoming more and more important. E d i t o r i a l D 1