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The sex difference in age of onset in schizophrenia is paradoxical in the sense that the brain is developing faster in females but onsets are earlier in males. Therefore if schizophrenia, as widely believed, is a disorder of development, the difference is in the wrong direction. Here we attempt to resolve the paradox with the hypothesis that psychosis is an anomaly of development of cerebral asymmetry and the following assumptions: (1) asymmetry (the torque) confers directionality on the 'language circuit'--failure to develop asymmetry leads to the risk of reverse transmission, a putative mechanism of psychotic symptoms; (2) the corpus callosum goes on developing in an antero-posterior direction into the third and fourth decades of life; (3) a sex difference in structure and development of the corpus callosum (with some anterior components greater in males and posterior components greater in females) reflects stronger, faster lateralization in females; (4) because of the inverse relationship between asymmetry and interhemispheric connections, females, by developing faster, avoid the misconnectivity phenomena in the frontal lobes that males, developing more slowly, may encounter at a younger age with particular risk of negative symptoms.

Original publication

DOI

10.1080/09540260701486282

Type

Journal article

Journal

Int Rev Psychiatry

Publication Date

08/2007

Volume

19

Pages

449 - 457

Keywords

Age of Onset, Brain, Cerebral Cortex, Corpus Callosum, Female, Functional Laterality, Humans, Male, Postmortem Changes, Psychotic Disorders, Sex Characteristics, Torque, Treatment Outcome