Brain Disorders: The Cause Of Schizophrenia

According to the American Psychiatric Association (2017), “schizophrenia is a chronic brain disorder that affects approximately one percent of the population.” Schizophrenia is considered a chronic and severe mental disorder. This disorder can affect how people feel, think, and even how they act. Unlike some diseases that only show up in certain genders or races, schizophrenia affects everyone the same. Schizophrenia affects men and women equally, but the ages when symptoms start to appear are at different times in his or her life. According to WebMD (2015), “Schizophrenia Usually takes hold after puberty. Men are normally diagnosed in their late teens to early twenties, while women are diagnosed in their late twenties and early thirties.”

One of the main topics that scientist are researching is the idea that schizophrenia can be inherited. Reported by Dr.Ballas (2006), people with no family history of schizophrenia have a 0.2% to a 1.1% of getting this disease in their lifetime. Research says that if the family has a history of schizophrenia that their chances of getting this disease can increase up to 10 percent. With research in this area scientist have found multiple genes that may have an effect on a persons chance of becoming ill, but research doesn’t go far enough to say weather or not the genes are the main cause. Another belief is that schizophrenia is cause by a chemical defect in the brain. “It is likely, although not yet certain, that the disorder is associated with some imbalance of the complex, interrelated chemical systems of the brain, perhaps involving the neurotransmitters dopamine and glutamate” (Bressert, 2017). The final look at causes of schizophrenia is an abnormality in the brain. This is the least supporting cause of schizophrenia due to the inability to fully study the brain. It is also said in this research that the characteristics are not always found in all patients. According to Bressert (2017), neurons connect incorrectly during fetal development and lie dormant until one goes through

Paranoid Schizophrenia is one of the most common types of schizophrenia patients suffer from. People with paranoid schizophrenia often describe life as a dark fragmented world (Gluck, 2017). The more prominent symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia are delusions, suicidal thoughts, anger, hallucinating, delusions, and anxiety. Sometimes hallucinations and delusions can become so bad that they will attack themselves or others due to the belief that someone is out for them. This form of schizophrenia is also known to show up later in life than most forms. Hebephrenic schizophrenia is another common type of illness seen in patients. People with Hebephrenic schizophrenia also experience hallucinations and delusions, but they are short lasting. The main symptom in this form of schizophrenia is disorganized thoughts and behavior. Patients may have a tendency to say or do things that do not make sense in the given situation. It can also be hard to understand a person suffering from Hebephrenic schizophrenia. Unlike paranoid schizophrenia, hebephrenic schizophrenia shows up between the ages of 15 and 25 years old. Catatonic schizophrenia is a less common form of this brain disease. Unlike the other forms, this form can cause people to not speak at all. Catatonia symptoms can include periods where individuals move very little and do not respond to