[The historical synchronicities of the Eli Lilly Canada Chair on schizophrenia research].

Abstract

Background Created in 2004, the Eli Lilly Canada Chair on schizophrenia research was funded by Eli Lilly, the Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal, Hôpital Sacré-Coeur and Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal. The aim of this article is to provide an historical overview of the scientific activities of the Chair since its inception. Method In order to carry out this historical account, we adopted a bibliometric approach. We carried out a PubMed search of all articles published by any of the Chair holders since its creation in 2004. Once the articles had been identified, we counted all the times they had been cited in the literature. This was done using Google Scholar. We also counted the main themes addressed in these articles. We adopted an externalist perspective for the interpretation of the scientific work. Results Since its creation in 2004, the Chair has published a total of 295 scientific articles, which have been cited 12,892 times. The main themes addressed in these articles are cognition, neuroimaging and antipsychotics, followed by addiction, psychosocial interventions and treatment resistance. The most influential articles showed the presence of an inflammatory syndrome and sleep difficulties in schizophrenia, in addition to corroborating the aberrant salience hypothesis of psychosis, disproving the lateralization of language hypothesis in schizophrenia, and establishing links between antipsychotic treatment and COVID-19. Discussion From an externalist perspective, the evolution of the Chair's work has been influenced by important factors external to the logic of scientific discovery, namely the commercialization of several antipsychotics during the 1990s-2000s, the relative democratization of neuroimaging during the 2000-2010s, the legalization of cannabis use for recreational purposes in 2018 in Canada, and the rise of digital health-notably virtual reality-over the past decade. Conversely, the focus on the neurobiology of violent behavior and the tendency to publish in French-language journals are trends that run counter to current social trends. The article concludes with a reflection on the nature of the concept of psychosis.