Cause Of Schizophrenia Essay

Researchers do not know exactly what causes schizophrenia, but it is believed to be caused by several factors. Genes, environment, and brain structure and chemistry may all play a part in the causes of schizophrenia. About one percent of the population in the United States have this illness. It is currently impossible to establish what makes a certain person develop schizophrenia. One person may develop the disease due to a high level of genetic risk while another may have schizophrenia due to a combination of environmental factors, prenatal factors, and other issues experienced during childhood. Experts believe that several different genes are associated with the disease, but it cannot be pinpointed to one specific gene. Scientists have found that people who have schizophrenia usually have a higher rate

Some studies suggest that the genes we are born with will only play a part in who we become if our environment activates them. For example, some scientists found that boys with a form of the MAOA gene (associated with aggression and criminality) had a higher risk of growing up to be antisocial or violent only if they were also neglected or abused when they were young. If the boys had this violence gene but grew up with a loving, nonabusive family, they turned out normal (“The Causes of Schizophrenia”). So if a person is biologically predisposed to schizophrenia but is never exposed to certain environmental factors they may never develop it. Another study done found that adopted children who had a high genetic risk of schizophrenia had an 86% lower rate of developing the disease when brought up in a healthy family compared to a dysfunctional family. In the healthy family only 6 percent of the children developed schizophrenia, but approximately 37 percent of the children in the dysfunctional families developed schizophrenia (“The Causes of