Causes Of Schizophreniz
Schizophrenia is one of our most important public health problems. It is a common, tragic, and devastating mental illness that typically strikes young people just when they are maturing into adulthood. Once it strikes, morbidity is high (60 percent of patients are receiving disability benefits within the first year after onset), (1) as is mortality (the suicide rate is 10 percent). (2) Despite the fact that people with schizophrenia are all around us (the lifetime prevalence is 1 percent worldwide), (2) this illness is often misunderstood, and people with schizophrenia are stigmatized by both the medical profession and the public.
Our understanding of the causation of schizophrenia has ...
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is very similar to that used to understand cancer. That is, schizophrenia probably occurs as a consequence of multiple "hits," which include some combination of inherited genetic factors and external, nongenetic factors that affect the regulation and expression of genes governing brain function or that injure the brain directly. Some people may have a genetic predisposition that requires a convergence of additional factors to produce the expression of the disorder. This convergence results in abnormalities in brain development and maturation, a process that is ongoing during the first two decades of life. (6) The abnormalities are typically not focal but, rather, involve distributed neural circuits and neurotransmitter systems. When the connectivity and communication within neural circuitry are disrupted, patients have a variety of symptoms and impairments in cognition. Behind this diversity, however, is a final common pathway that defines the illness. For schizophrenia, it is ...
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existence provides additional support for the likelihood that the disorder is the result of a basic process such as a general impairment in the coordination of information processing. (7,8) Unlike other mental illnesses that are also characterized by deficits in multiple cognitive systems (e.g., Alzheimer's disease), however, schizophrenia does not usually involve deterioration or progress to dementia. Instead, the degree of impairment is relatively stable after an initial fulminant course, which may last for several years. After that point, cognitive function may even improve. (9)
Schizophrenia also differs from the classic dementias in that there are no visible neuropathological ...
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Causes Of Schizophreniz. (2008, January 6). Retrieved December 22, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Causes-Of-Schizophreniz/77070
"Causes Of Schizophreniz." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 6 Jan. 2008. Web. 22 Dec. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Causes-Of-Schizophreniz/77070>
"Causes Of Schizophreniz." Essayworld.com. January 6, 2008. Accessed December 22, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Causes-Of-Schizophreniz/77070.
"Causes Of Schizophreniz." Essayworld.com. January 6, 2008. Accessed December 22, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Causes-Of-Schizophreniz/77070.
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