Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorder And Its Wide Range Of Behaviour

Abstract

Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorder has a wide range of disorders that can alter a person's mind in different ways. These can include delusions, hallucinations and risky behavior. There are a lot of causes for this disorder, but the two main ones are genetics and substance use. Harvard medical did an experiment on approximately 65,000 people with the results being due to a genetic process. Individual risk of this condition increases when a person inherits a gene called synaptic pruning; this is a natural process that occurs in the brain during early childhood and adulthood. During this, the brain eliminates extra synapse which is a brain structure allowing the neurons to transmit an electrical and chemical signal to another neuron. Even though Schizophrenia was discovered over 130 years ago there is still no definite treatment for it. Two scientists focused on a specific gene called C4. C4 has a high structural variability. They studied this gene in 700 post-mortem brain samples. They found that the DNA could predict the RNA in an individual's brain. McCarroll states that schizophrenia is a black box for medical research. The term black box is used metaphorically meaning it is a phenomenon that cannot be directly viewed. There is a potential cause for this disorder, but no confirmation has been discovered.

Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorder

The condition, Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorder, encompasses a wide range of medical conditions that mess with a person's mind. These disorders include schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, delusional disorder, schizotypal personality disorder, schizophreniform disorder, brief psychotic disorder and psychosis. Psychosis can be related to anything revolving around substance use or even a medical condition, but it happens to show up frequently in a person with a disorder such as the one listed above. Research shows that people with these disorders have been exposed to a trauma of one kind or another. 68 out of 81 individuals were proven to have some trauma either before or after diagnosis. Delusions correlated with elevated trauma scales, intrusive experiences and dissociation while hallucinations were correlated with irritability and elevated trauma scales.

Scientists Aswin Sekar and Steven McCarroll studied genetics and genomes at Harvard Medical. These scientists decided to explore one region of the brain that contained the gene C4. Complement component 4 also known as C4 is an immune molecule that helps to contain infection outside of the central nervous system. This component has been found to play a key role in brain development and a risk factor for schizophrenia. “Since schizophrenia was first described over a century ago, its underlying biology has been a black box, in part because it has been virtually impossible to model the disorder in cells or animals,” said McCarroll. “Understanding these genetic effects on risk is a way of prying open that black box, peering inside and starting to see actual biological mechanisms.” Harvard Medical School, Broad Institute and Boston Childrens Hospital did a study that found synaptic pruning increases the risk of schizophrenia if a person inherits a specific form in a gene. Synaptic pruning is said to be the brain’s way of removing connections that are no longer needed such as synapses. Synapse is a gene that transmits information from one neuron to another. Scientists Beth Stevens and Michael Carroll found that C4 plays a key role in pruning synapses during the brain's maturation. The human brain normally undergoes a widespread synapse pruning during the adolescence stage of life especially in the cerebral cortex; excessive pruning during that time due to increased C4 activity could lead to the cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder in which people experience reality abnormally. People suffering with this disease require lifelong treatment but if helped in the early stages', symptoms can be controlled before long lasting complications develop. It may also improve the life of the patient in the long term. Hallucinations, delusions, and extreme disorientation are some of the symptoms that can impair a person's daily functions or can be disabling. This disorder can affect a person in many ways including their cognition, behavior and emotions. Although different people can experience different symptoms, most of them are negative and tend to cause a strain in life. Delusions are false beliefs that are not based on reality. This includes thinking you are being harmed or not being able to tell if a catastrophe is going to happen. Hallucinations involve a person seeing or hearing things that aren't there. Even though this can affect any of the senses, hearing is usually the most common. Disorganized thinking or speech is when effective communication is impaired, and answers are only partial or unrelated. Abnormal motor behavior is shown in many ways such as childlike silliness or unpredictable agitation. Negative symptoms include reduced or lack of ability to function normally. Schizophrenia can be experienced in all age groups, even teenagers. Some symptoms may include withdrawal from friends or family, a drop in performance at school, trouble sleeping, irritability, or lack of motivation. The difference between an adult and teenager having this is that the teen may be less likely to have delusions and more likely to have visual hallucinations. Some ways to be diagnosed with this disorder are a physical exam, tests and screenings, psychiatric evaluations, etc. Treatments include seeing a psychologist, social worker, medications, and more. Doctors may prescribe antidepressants or anti-anxiety drugs. Genetic, psychological, endocrinological, metabolic, environmental, virologic, and auto-immunological factors, as well as neurotransmitter systems, are all factors that have been proposed as causing this disorder. The biological side induces hallucinations, the social stigma interferes with healthy social interaction, and the phycological element of psychosis involves the treatment of the mental illness that compromises their mind.

Schizoaffective disorder is a chronic mental health condition characterized primarily by symptoms of schizophrenia but also of mood disorders such as mania and depression. Mania is an abnormally elevated state of arousal. Mania is a symptom of bipolar disorder - a mental illness that can lead to risky behavior, causing damage to relationships and careers, or even suicidal tendencies. Some causes of this disorder can be genetics, brain chemistry, stress, or drugs such as LSD. LSD, also known as Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, is an acidic drug used as a hallucinogenic. This alters a person's thoughts, feelings and awareness. Stress can make a sane person go crazy, but for this to be a factor, there is usually an underlying problem such as drugs or their brain not functioning properly. Just like with heart conditions, diabetes, or any other condition, you can be born with this running through you. It is just a matter of whether you act on it and get help or not. This can be difficult to diagnose because it has so many similar symptoms to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression. The two main types of schizoaffective disorder are bipolar type and depression type. To be diagnosed with this disorder, one must have a mood disorder and schizophrenia symptoms occurring at the same time. Delusions or hallucinations must be present for two or more weeks without a mood episode. Mood episode symptoms are present most of the time of the illness. Even though illegal drugs have side effects, they are not responsible for the symptoms. Treatments can include medications such as mood stabilizers, antipsychotic medications and antidepressants. Psychotherapy is another treatment option which can be cognition, behavioral, or family focused. A person can have the following health conditions as well; anxiety disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or substance use disorders.

Delusional disorder is also known as paranoid disorder. It is a type of mental illness called a psychotic disorder. People who suffer from it can't tell what is real from what is imagined. It may be common knowledge, but delusions are the main symptoms of delusional disorder. Unlike what was said above, this disorder is based on an altered reality and amplifies fears such as being chased, poisoned, deceived, etc; and are usually mistaken perceptions or experiences. People suffering with this can often continue as normal and socialize and do not behave bizarrely. Some types of delusional disorders are erotomaniac, grandiose, jealousy, and mixed. Erotomaniac is when a person believes someone is in love with them and might try contacting that person, often being a celebrity or someone of importance. This tends to cause a stalking behavior. Grandiose is when a person has a huge ego or over-exaggerated sense of worth, power, knowledge or identity. Jealousy is when a person believes a source is being unfaithful and mixed is when someone has more than one type of delusion. Some symptoms are non-bizarre delusions, irritability, anger or low mood, and hallucinations. Some causes of this are genetics, biological and environmental. Biological is when researchers studied how this disorder might happen when parts of the brain aren't normal. Evidence suggest that stress can trigger delusional disorder. Alcohol and drug abuse also contribute to it. It is diagnosed by Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and delirium. It can also be diagnosed by a person having one of more delusions lasting longer than a month. It can be treated with medicines such as Chlorpromazine (Thorazine), Fluphenazine (Prolixin), Haloperidol (Haldol) and Loxapine (Oxylipin).

Schizotypal Personality disorder is a mental disorder characterized by severe social anxiety, thought disorder, paranoid ideation, derealization, transient psychosis and unconventional beliefs. People with this disorder tend to keep their distances from others and are also uncomfortable in a relationship. Many of the public have difficulty with memory, learning and attention, but do not have the delusional or hallucination symptoms like a schizophrenic person does; although they can develop schizophrenia. It appears more in men than women and about half the people with this disorder have an episode of major depression at some point of their life. Stress also tends to make the condition worse. Some symptoms include unusual thinking, belief, or behavior, old speech, paranoid ideas, and more. Depending on the persons symptoms and history is how doctors diagnose a person with this disorder. There is no laboratory test that can be performed to diagnose a person with this disorder. This is a long-lasting disorder or even lifelong. Even though treatment can be administered in the early stages, it cannot be prevented. As with everything else, medications and therapists are a type of treatment, but depending on the stage a person is at, you can choose to handle it by yourself or get help.

Schizophreniform disorder is a mental disorder diagnosed when symptoms of schizophrenia are present for at least a month to six months. This can distort the way a person thinks, acts, expresses their emotions, perceives reality or even relates to others. Alike schizophrenia this is called psychosis and lasts an incredible shorter amount of time. One out of a thousand people develop this disorder during their life and occurs equally in men and women. Men tend to be diagnosed at a younger stage in life ranging from 18 to 24 whereas women get it later ranging from 24 to 35. The symptoms are delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech such as not making sense, using nonsense words and skipping from one topic to another. Other symptoms include odd strange behavior like pacing walking in circles and writing constantly and negative symptoms like lack of energy and hygiene. Brain chemistry, genetics and environmental factors are all causes of this condition.

Brief psychotic disorder is an uncommon psychiatric condition characterized by sudden and temporary periods of psychotic behavior. Symptoms include delusions, hallucinations and confusion occurring in stressful situations. These are not usually caused by alcohol or drug use but last from a day or a month at most making the outcome very good.. Causes of this are triggered by extreme stress such as a traumatic experience but will return to the previous level of function and may not be aware of the strange behavior. This tends to affect people in their twenties, thirties and forties. Physical and laboratory tests and exams rule out a medical illness, but a psychiatric evaluation confirms the diagnoses. No treatment is really needed due to the short period of time that this lasts bit in some cases it can be the beginning of something worse. Antipsychotic drugs do help to decrease or stop the psychotic symptoms.

Psychosis is a severe mental disorder where thought and emotions are impaired to the point contact is lost with reality. The first signs of having this are a drop in any type of performance, trouble thinking clearly or concentrating, uneasiness with others, a decline in hygiene, no feelings or spending an unusual amount of time alone. This is a disturbance in a mind causing problems with seeing, believing and hearing the truth and most suffers say it is frightening and confusing. Approximately 100,000 youthful people experience it per year and 3 in 100 people have an episode in their lives. FEP or first-episode psychosis is when a person has their first signs of beginning to lose contact with reality. As always if caught early then treatments tend to work better than if left to go for a while. Peer-support, supported education or employment and even case management are some treatments that can help in the long run. A person is diagnosed by ruling out bigger things such as brain tumors, infect and epilepsy. Medical or family history and a physical exam are ways to diagnose depending on what is found with other tests. Causes may include physical injury, mental health conditions, trauma, genetics, and substance use. Some early signs are using the senses in an abnormal way, unusual thoughts or beliefs, inappropriate emotions or none at all, sudden decline in self-care and withdrawing from friends and family.

This is the relative prevalence of Schizophrenia. Approximately 1 percent worldwide or 1.5 million people is diagnosed with this disorder and in the united states it is about 1.2 percent which averages to 3.2 million Americans having this disorder.