Mental Disorders: Schizophrenia

In this essay, the author

• Describes two theories which explain the occurrence of schizophrenia and will explain how these theories relate to the environment and to genetics.
• Explains schizophrenia is a serious mental disorder that causes psychosis, which means break with reality. the onset of the disorder is usually in the late teens.
• Explains that schizophrenia is genetic in origin and there is strong evidence that this is the case. in identical twins, a person's chance of developing schizophrenia increases when they are closely related to someone with schizophrenia.

• Describes two theories which explain the occurrence of schizophrenia and will explain how these theories relate to the environment and to genetics.
• Explains schizophrenia is a serious mental disorder that causes psychosis, which means break with reality. the onset of the disorder is usually in the late teens.
• Explains that schizophrenia is genetic in origin and there is strong evidence that this is the case. in identical twins, a person's chance of developing schizophrenia increases when they are closely related to someone with schizophrenia.
• Explains that children who had a parent with schizophrenia but were adopted and grew up in different families had higher risk of developing the condition themselves. this suggests that it is inherited genetic differences that cause schizophrenia and not the environmental influence
• Explains that adopted children with an inherited susceptibility to schizophrenia are at higher risk of developing the condition if there are high levels of stress and dysfunction in the adoptive home.
• Explains that canon et al, found that siblings of individuals with schizophrenia also have similar neurological functioning even if they do not have the condition themselves. this suggests that there is a genetic element to the disease.
• Explains that there are biological differences in the structure and chemistry of the brains of schizophrenics compared to those without schizophrenia.
• Opines that the cause of schizophrenia is largely down to genetic influence but that this is not conclusive.
• Explains that the occurrence of schizophrenia is caused by environmental factors such as damage to the developing foetus or early life.
• Explains that genetics alone cannot explain the occurrence of schizophrenia, as although identical twins are highly likely to both develop the condition, this is not always the case.
• States that there is no evidence that psychosocial factors cause schizophrenia, but environmental social factors can have an effect on how and when the disease develops and the chances of the person having a relapse.
• Explains that the family's attitude and behaviour can have a strong influence on the progression of schizophrenia. an unsupportive family could trigger new episodes of psychosis.
• Explains that people living in less developed countries like india or nigeria are more likely to recover from schizophrenia than those who live in more developed modern western societies.
• Explains that schizophrenia is linked to social inequality and it has been found that urban neighbourhoods with high deprivation, high population density, and high inequalities have higher rates of schizophrenia.
• Explains that gluten intolerance causes coeliac disease, which causes the body's immune system to attack healthy tissue. kalaydjian et al report that removing gluten from the diets of some patients with schizophrenia can improve their symptoms.
• Explains that cannabis smoking can greatly increase the chances of the disease developing, especially if used regularly in the teenage years. stress, physical or sexual abuse and deprivation in childhood also increases the risk.
• Concludes that the interaction between genetics and the environment gives the best explanation of the cause of schizophrenia.
• Explains that neuropsychological functioning in siblings discordant for schizophrenic and healthy volunteers.
• Explains the association between schizophrenia and celiac.
• Explains that nhs choices (2012) coeliac disease [online] available from http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coelia-disease/pages/introduction.aspx>.
• Explains the meta-analysis of the association of urbanicity with schizophrenia.