Almost all the studies done on chronic medicated schizophrenia patients using the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms (SAPS) and the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS) have shown that the symptoms of schizophrenia can be grouped into three orthogonal syndromes, namely, reality distortion (psychotic/positive), psychomotor poverty (negative), and the disorganization dimensions.[26] Studies on chronic medicated schizophrenia patients are limited by the confounding effects of chronicity and effect of medications on symptom profiles and the various neurobiological variables. This makes it imperative to study the symptom profile and underlying neurobiological variables in neuroleptic-naïve recent-onset schizophrenia patients. We explored the dimensionality of psychopathology as rated using the SAPS and SANS in a sample of 43 neuroleptic-naïve patients with recent-onset schizophrenia/schizophreniform disorder.[17] We carried out a Principal Components Analysis of the SAPS and SANS global ratings with varimax rotation and Kaiser normalization. Three components with eigen value>1 were extracted, viz., negative (affective flattening, alogia, avolition, anhedonia, and inappropriate affect), psychosis (delusions and hallucinations), and disorganization (positive formal thought disorder and bizarre behavior). Cumulatively, these three dimensions with eigen values
