Neurodevelopment and schizophrenia: data on minor physical anomalies and structural brain imaging.

The neurodevelopmental hypothesis of schizophrenia suggests that subtle anomalous brain development occurs in utero which reveals itself symptomatically, years later, as the heterogeneous symptoms of schizophrenia. This paper briefly reviews data on the presence of minor physical anomalies in those affected by schizophrenia and also summarizes a few results from structural brain imaging studies, which promote the neurodevelopmental hypothesis of the disease.