Abstract
Patients with psychiatric disorders, especially for schizophrenia, exhibit impairments in diverse cognitive functions, such as sensory processing, memory attention, learning, reasoning and executive function. Because of their refractory nature, there is an urgent need to develop effective treatments by identifying the neural mechanisms of cognitive dysfunction. In prefrontal cortex, a key driver in cognitive function, accumulating evidence have suggested that altered balance between excitatory and inhibitory networks play, at least in part, an essential role in the neural basis underlying cognitive impairments in psychiatric disorders. The authors believe identifying upstream factors and signaling cascades that cause functional changes in excitatory and inhibitory neurons in the prefrontal neural network should lead to understanding the pathophysiology and developing the treatment strategies. With these reasons in mind, this mini review will introduce our recent postmortem brain research focusing on dysregulated excitatory/inhibitory neural network activity in patients with psychiatric disorders.
