This review summarizes some of the evidence supporting the ideas
that: (i) impairments in certain cognitive processes are the core feature
of schizophrenia; (ii) these cognitive impairments reflect abnormalities
in specific cortical circuits; and (iii) these circuitry abnormalities arise
during childhood–adolescence. The implications of these findings for
the development and implementation of safe, preemptive, diseasemodifying
interventions in individuals at high risk for a clinical
diagnosis of schizophrenia are considered.