Schizoaffective disorder has a prevalance of 0.5 %. In this disease, psychotic
symptoms are combined with affective, i.e. depressive, manic or bipolar symptoms. The
disease is encoded in susceptibility genes, which can be enhanced by stresssful life events
or psychotomimitic substances. The neurotransmitter and neuropeptide alterations are
described in the involved brain regions in schizophrenic and affective symptoms. In these
brain regions, neural networks are described including a multi-neurotransmitter system.
The coherence between the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and the neurotransmitter
alterations will be pointed out. The current pharmacotherapy is reviewed, and some new
antipsychotic drugs will be examined critically. The importance of additional
sociotherapies and psychoeducaction is underlined, because it enables the schizoaffective
patients to be reintegrated into social and perhaps professional lifes.
Keywords: Affective symptom, antipsychotic drug, cognitive symptom,
depressive symptom, dopamine, first-episode schizophrenia, gene-environment
interaction, hippocampus, manic symptom, mesolimbic system, midbrain,
monoamine, negative symptom, neural network, positive symptom, prefrontal
cortex, schizoaffective disorder, schizophrenia, serotonin, susceptibility gene.
