ABSTRACT
Although the disturbances of thinking that accompany schizophrenia are arguably the most dramatic identi®ers of this illness, they stubbornly resist the efforts of contemporary neuroscience to uncloak their mysterious origins and their basic nature. The two pioneering systematizers of schizophrenic disorders, Kraepelin and Bleuler, assigned to the thought disturbances of schizophrenia the role of a telltale indicator that identi®es this syndrome. About a century later, we ®nd ourselves only marginally further towards understanding their mechanisms. With the help of the newly invented and sharpened measuring tools of cognitive neuroscience, however, moving beyond the old established frontier is now closer to realization.
