Schizophrenia as a cognitive disorder: Recent approaches to identifying its core cognitive components to aid treatment development

In recent years the central role of cognitive deficits in schizophrenia has been increasingly accepted (Gold & Green, 2005; Green & Nuechterlein, 1999), so much so that the cognitive deficits have become very prominent new targets for treatment development (Gold, 2004; Hyman & Fenton, 2003). In this paper we examine factors that led to the conclusion that cognitive factors are core features of schizophrenia and then discuss recent approaches to identifying the cognitive domains and processes that offer promise as treatment targets.