Science of recovery in schizophrenia research: brain and psychological substrates of personalized value

Although schizophrenia was first described as dementia praecox by E. Kraepelin more than a hundred years ago, assuming a neurodegenerative origin, neurodevelopmental hypothesis of schizophrenia 1 has been established by the late 20th century. In the last decade, clinical staging model of schizophrenia 2 has been increasingly recognized and early intervention is regarded as a promising strategy. The fact that early intervention for psychosis involves providing treatment in the critical period, i.e, at around the onset of the condition, has reminded us of how little we know about the developmental neuroscience of adolescence and how important it is to incorporate knowledge of adolescent brain development into schizophrenia research.3 Human adolescence is much longer than that in non-human primates, and is the stage of life in which the cerebral neocortex matures, thereby promoting human-specific self-regulation.3 Schizophrenia might be reconsidered as a developmental disorder of self-regulation in adolescence