PSY625WK2ASSIGNMENT.docx

Running head: SCHIZOPHRENIA 1

SCHIZOPHRENIA 2

Neuroscience behind Schizophrenia

Natoya Wayne
PSY625: Biological Basis of Behavior
Dr. Irene Kovacs-Donaghy
May 24, 2021
University of Arizona Global Campus

Introduction

Schizophrenia is often misunderstood as the patients who have schizophrenia are considered dangerous and violent. It is because, in various movies, schizophrenia patients are portrayed as violent. But the reality is different from the movies as schizophrenic patients are usually nonviolent. Many people are usually unaware of schizophrenia and misdiagnosis is usually quite common because the symptoms can mirror other brain based mental dis s or illegal drug addiction. Therefore, it may take months and years for Mental Health professionals to make an accurate diagnosis that the psychotic symptoms are related to schizophrenia and not another mental condition. An afflicted person may behave very normal sometimes, then suddenly will start doing very odd things such as spouting gibberish and erratic behavior or may relapse in a catatonic state refusing to eat or drink. Schizophrenia was also one of the mental dis s that have been labelled as demonic possession especially in the dark and middle ages before modern medicine. Additionally, schizophrenia is a complex brain dis which leaves its impact on all aspects of lives of the patients. So, what does research have to say about this often-misunderstood mental dis ?
Schizophrenia is declared a chronic and psychotic dis that has a severe impact on the patients’ lives in almost all aspects. Schizophrenic patients are often characterized by cognitive impairment, hallucinations, delusions, and lack of social connectivity. Patients find it very difficult to have clear thoughts as they are unable to distinguish between reality and fantasy. It is challenging for them to behave in an emotionally appropriate way. The onset of symptoms usually occurs during the mid to late 20s. Although the incidence rate of schizophrenia is very low, it is very uncommon to be diagnosed with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia imposes very devastating effects on the lives of patients, which include relationships, career education, and social life (Aleman, 2014).
Schizophrenia Is a complex brain dis that affects about 1% of the total population in the world. Symptoms start appearing among teenagers, making it very difficult to get diagnosed with schizophrenia. Teenagers start to grow more distant from their family, friends, and social circle at the early stages. They usually lack motivation, suffer from sleeping dis s, often become depressed, and lack concentration, because of which their performance at school is greatly affected. As symptoms are very common, they can be easily related to other issues that occur to teenagers during their school life.  For example, being bullied in school shows similar symptoms making it very hard to get diagnosed at an early stage. Positive symptoms usually consist of hallucinations, delusions, and confused thoughts with disorganized speech. Patients showing positive symptoms also suffer from a lack of concentration. Negative symptoms comprise disruption in normal mental functioning of the brain. Patients with negative symptoms find difficulty in maintaining normal behaviors. There is a variation of symptoms, but the general symptoms and time include hallucination, delusions, impaired cognitive ability, and disorganized speech. These symptoms made the patients become more socially impaired, making them distant from society (Woo, 2013). 
According to Karlsgodt, Sun & Cannon (2010), people with schizophrenia suffer from loss of brain tissues. Because of this, schizophrenic patients have reduced or disrupted connections, leading to the emergence of changes throughout the state of disease, making them suffer during their whole life span. During MRI scans, structural defects of reduced grey matter were observed in superior temporal, medial temporal, and prefrontal areas.
The functions of these three regions in the brain differ as medial temporal is responsible for spatial and episodic memory. The function of superior temporal is the processing of sounds. While the prefrontal region is responsible for the functioning of various things, which include social behaviors, planning, cognition of thinking, and personality development. A reduction in grey matter is observed as there is a reduction in dendritic complexity and synaptic density in the brain. Because of this reduction, the patients often suffer from interneuron communication and integration. Among teenagers and young adults during the onset of schizophrenia, the volume of grey matter in the prefrontal cortex starts to decline. This decline increases with the growth and development of teenagers and young adults with age. Along with the grey matter, white matter also declines, leading to various structural abnormalities (Ross et al., 2006; Karlsgodt, Sun & Cannon, 2010).
There are various psychosocial programs and therapies that help treat schizophrenia, but there is still no optimum treatment as a cure for schizophrenia. Antipsychotics are considered to impact the reduction of positive symptoms of schizophrenia positively. Along with antipsychotics, there is a need to Attend psychotherapies, including various therapy programs aimed at improving the cognition, behavior, and social status of the patients (Ross et al., 2006). Early diagnosis of schizophrenia is very difficult because symptoms appear in early teenagers.  These symptoms are often misjudged for other social phenomena. Because there is a lack of awareness regarding the symptoms which start originating during late adolescence and early adulthood. The diagnosis of this disease relies on the appearance of positive symptoms followed by a prolonged psychotic episode. Moreover, the symptoms do not refer to a particular mental dis .  These complications made this disease very hard to diagnose (Kesby et al., 2018).
Conclusion

Clinical diagnosis of schizophrenia at early stages can help in the betterment of the patients, but it has been observed that a complex range of symptoms appears before Diagnostic time. These complications made this disease very hard to detect and get treated. More research is needed to understand the neuroscience behind this disease so that It can contribute towards the development of a proper treatment plan. Understanding the neurobiological processes can also contribute to identifying behavioral abnormalities therapies and treatments can be suggested. Further clinical research highlights the variety of symptoms and neurobiological abnormalities regarding the detection of schizophrenia.

References
Aleman, A. (2014). Neurocognitive basis of schizophrenia: information processing abnormalities and clues for treatment. Advances in Neuroscience, 2014. Doi: 10.1155/2014/104920

Karlsgodt, K. H., Sun, D., & Cannon, T. D. (2010). Structural and functional brain abnormalities in schizophrenia. Current directions in psychological science, 19(4), 226-231. Doi: 10.1177/0963721410377601
Kesby, J. P., Eyles, D. W., McGrath, J. J., & Scott, J. G. (2018). Dopamine, psychosis and schizophrenia: the widening gap between basic and clinical neuroscience. Translational psychiatry, 8(1), 1-12. doi: 10.1038/s41398-017-0071-9

Ross, C. A., Margolis, R. L., Reading, S. A., Pletnikov, M., & Coyle, J. T. (2006). Neurobiology of schizophrenia. Neuron, 52(1), 139-153. Doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2006.09.015

Woo, T. U. W. (2013). Neurobiology of schizophrenia onset. The neurobiology of childhood, 267-295. doi: 10.1007/7854_2013_243