Neuropathology of major psychiatric disorders: A systematic review

Objective: The purpose of this paper is to review literature on the neuropathology of major psychiatric disorders.

Methods: Systematic reviews of neuropathology of psychiatric disorders were identified from 1972 to 2022 through the use of the PubMed database, using the keywords: ‘neuropathology’ AND ‘schizophrenia’ OR ‘bipolar’ OR ‘major depression’. The search was then narrowed to systematic reviews.

Results: Ten systematic reviews were selected in this review. The neuropathological findings were identified and detailed for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression, at the macroscopic and microscopic levels.

Conclusion: Most of the Psychiatric disorders showed cortical damage in certain areas of the brain especially the cingulate cortex, temporal lobe, and the amygdala. The main limitation of interpreting neuropathological findings in major psychiatric disorders is simply identifying and analyzing brain samples of sufficient quantity and quality for research.