Relationship of Cingulate Cortex to Schizophrenia and Other Psychiatric Disorders

Abstract

Mental disorders present a unique challenge for neuroscience because they typically alter the way that individuals think, feel, and perceive the external world, while generally sparing motor, sensory, and intellectual functioning. Historically, mental illness has been arbitrarily separated from the mainstream of medicine and research and has been typically referred to as ``behavioral'' entities. The latter terminology has traditionally carried a pejorative connotation because behavior in humans has been tacitly understood as ``willful'' in nature and, therefore, of ``one's own doing.'' An unfortunate result of this historical trend has been for the psychiatric disorders to be largely ignored by the basic sciences where interests have been directed toward problems with a ``sound biological basis.''