Japan's psychiatric society decided Saturday to change the Japanese name of schizophrenia to help dispel prejudice against people with the disorder, sources close to the society said.
The Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology will announce the change of the name from "seishin bunretsu byo" (split-mind disorder) to "togo shiccho sho" (loss of coordination disorder) at the World Congress of Psychiatry to be held late August in Yokohama, they said.
Schizophrenia is typically characterized by disorganized speech and behavior, hallucinations and delusions. While the cause of the disorder is not known, a dominant theory attributes the illness to an imbalance of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain.