Scientists believe that people with schizophrenia have an imbalance of the neurotransmitters (brain chemicals) serotonin, dopamine, and glutamate .
Other research suggests that schizophrenia might be caused by a lack of dopamine activity in other parts of the brain. For example, scientists have discovered that the hippocampus is overactive in schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia is a complex brain disorder. It often runs in families and can cause troubling symptoms. It's caused by a chemical imbalance and other changes in the brain. Symptoms include hearing voices, feeling that people are out to get you, and having false beliefs that are not based in reality.
Differences in brain chemistry
These chemicals are thought to include dopamine, which helps to carry messages between brain cells. Some research suggests that an imbalance between certain neurotransmitters, including dopamine and serotonin, may be one of the causes behind schizophrenia.
Compared with healthy subjects, schizophrenic patients may also have increased levels of serotonin and decreased levels of norepinephrine in the brain. Conventional antipsychotic drugs nonselectively block dopamine D2 receptors throughout the central nervous system.
The authors hypothesize that schizophrenia is characterized by abnormally low prefrontal dopamine activity (causing deficit symptoms) leading to excessive dopamine activity in mesolimbic dopamine neurons (causing positive symptoms).
The main psychological triggers of schizophrenia are stressful life events, such as: bereavement. losing your job or home. divorce.
Brain chemicals – changes in your brain chemistry can cause psychosis. Increases in the chemical dopamine can cause hallucinations, delusions and disorganised thinking. While, when you're stressed, your brain releases a chemical called cortisol, which can increase the chances of psychosis.
Common Causes of a Schizophrenia Relapse
Not taking medication regularly or as prescribed is by far the most common cause of schizophrenia relapse. Persistent use of drugs or alcohol and criticism from caregivers are next on the list.
People with schizophrenia experience psychosis, which means they can have serious problems with thinking clearly, emotions, and knowing what is real and what is not. This can include hearing or seeing things that are not there (hallucinations), and having very strange beliefs that are abnormal or not true (delusions).
In terms of biological factors, an imbalance of the neurotrans- mitters dopamine, glutamate, norepinephrine, and serotonin is also linked to schizoaffective disorder. Neurotransmitters are brain chemicals that communicate information throughout the brain and body.
In a large clinical study, 60 percent of patients with schizophrenia (subtype 1) had decreased gray matter volumes throughout the brain compared to healthy people, which is the typical pattern seen in those with this disorder.
Schizophrenia is typically diagnosed in the late teens years to early thirties, and tends to emerge earlier in males (late adolescence – early twenties) than females (early twenties – early thirties). More subtle changes in cognition and social relationships may precede the actual diagnosis, often by years.
Schizophrenia is a condition that affects all areas of life, and that appears to include intelligence. Overall, people who live with schizophrenia have lower IQ scores than those who don't experience the condition.
Schizophrenia has been described as the “worst disease” to afflict mankind. It causes psychosis, which is an abnormal state of mind marked by hyperarousal, overactivation of brain circuits, and emotional distress. An untreated episode of psychosis can result in structural brain damage due to neurotoxicity.
Researchers believe dopamine plays an important role in psychosis. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, 1 of many chemicals the brain uses to transmit information from 1 brain cell to another. It's associated with how we feel whether something is significant, important, or interesting.
Having low levels of dopamine can make you less motivated and excited about things. It's linked to some mental illnesses including depression, schizophrenia and psychosis.
Schizophrenia is a chronic mental illness that has no cure. It causes symptoms of psychosis, including hallucinations, delusions, disordered thinking and speech, abnormal behaviors, and changes in emotional affect. While this condition cannot be cured, it can be successfully treated.
Risk factors
Although the precise cause of schizophrenia isn't known, certain factors seem to increase the risk of developing or triggering schizophrenia, including: Having a family history of schizophrenia. Increased immune system activation, such as from inflammation. Older age of the father.
The truth is that while schizophrenia is influenced by genetics, it isn't directly inherited.
If left untreated, schizophrenia can worsen at any age, especially if you continue to experience episodes and symptoms. Typically, early onset schizophrenia in the late teens tends to be associated more with severe symptoms than later-life onset. But aging can change the trajectory of how symptoms show up.
There is extensive central nervous system involvement in the pathology of schizophrenia. These include frontal lobe changes responsible for memory and executive processes and temporal lobe changes responsible for language comprehension, auditory perception, and episodic memory [6].
Serotonin is a neurotransmitter whose dysregulation may underlie the negative symptoms and high rates of depression seen in people with schizophrenia. Supporting this, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors have been found to be effective in treating the negative symptoms of the disorder.
People with schizophrenia experience difficulties in remembering their past and envisioning their future. However, while alterations of event representation are well documented, little is known about how personal events are located and ordered in time.