what causes schizophrenia?

[gib65]

I remember learning years back, in one of my psyc courses, that schizophrenic symptoms arises from traumatic experiences, but that one has to have the schizophrenic gene to begin with - otherwise, the only pathology that would result from trauma is PTSD. I can't remember, though, if this was just the most widely held hypothesis or it was an established fact, backed by substantial amounts of research. What's the current concensus on this?

[alext87]

I thought the current thinking was that a person had to have the schizophrenic gene and then be exposed to a event that caused the symptoms. However, I dont think this is backed up by extensive research as the problem was with identifying the event which caused the symptoms as the person may not be aware of the traumatic experience. Therefore some people believe that the gene is triggered in some people by an event but in other is as a result of a hormone imbalence through puberty.

[badchad]

The cause is unknown. Most of the current research suggests that schizophrenia arises from a combination of genetic and environmental factors.

[RyanJ]

The cause is unknown. Most of the current research suggests that schizophrenia arises from a combination of genetic and environmental factors.

 

^ Agree. If we knew the exact cause then we could start to develop a cure but it seems to be different in each person that has it

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia#Causes << Plenty of information there for you

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[scicop]

Although the exact causes are unknown (enviromental and genetic factors are said above) it is well accepted that the pathology is due to excessive dopamine/serotonin in the cortical part of the brain and possible reduced dopamine/serotonin in straital regions.

 

The mainstay of treatment tend to be atypical antipsychotics which predominantly block dopamine/serotonin activity, although there are new ones out there that exert differential activities on dopamine systems.

 

These agents tend to reduce the symtoms of psychosis, but usually patients have to be maintained on these therapies in order to remain in remission.

[bob000555]

noone relly knows but i herd it was a result of dameg to the cerebellum causing the rest of the brain to resev faulty information and then it trys to adapt and gets all messed up.

[Glider]

The cerebellum doesn't have anything to do with Schitzophrenia. The cerebellum is mainly associated with muscle tone, posture and automatic (ballistic) motor function.

 

Badchad is correct. Schitzophrenia results from a combination of genetic and environmental factors as far as is known. There are neurological changes associated with the condition; increased volume of the lateral ventricles, elevated levels of dopamine etc,. but these could be a product of the condition rather than a cause. Schitzophrenia is not fully understood.

[Peels]

Schizophrenia = X% of genetic + (100-X)% of environmental

 

X from 0 to 100.

[scicop]

Although the initiating causes of schizophernia is unknown there has been some progress in understading its orgin. Gene expression studies using a combination of DNA microarrays and brains of deceased schizo patients (screened for schizo, eliminated for other pyschological conditions) have revealed profiles consistant with altered mylenation, the glial process of surrounding neurons for physiological and electrical support. Work by Ken Davis MD (mount sinai school of med) and New York Psychiatric Institute have published said data.

[michael]

These links may be of interest.

Schizophrenia is a dreadful, destructive disease, far to common. We need to put more resources into discovering a cure. I don't know if we are even asking the right questions at the moment.

 

Google "Borna Virus" and schizophrenia

&

Pellagra produces very similar symptoms to schizophrenia.

A Science Odyssey: People and Discoveries: Pellagra shown to be ...

Pellagra had been a low-level problem throughout the South for years, ... The pellagra symptoms disappeared when the volunteers were given meat, ...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/dm15pa.html - 5k

also

Summary: ... Another blank on schizophrenia gene Monday, 29 April 2002 New map of ... http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/archives/ScienceNewsArchive2002_April2002.htm - 19k - [ html ] - Cached - 27 Nov 2006

 

and

News in Science - Whale brains are part human - 28/11/2006

Summary: ... Complex social patterns The researches found spindle neurones in the same location in toothed whales with the largest brains, which the researchers say suggests the cells may be related to brain size. ... Spindle cells may be affected by Alzheimer's disease and other debilitating brain disorders such as autism and schizophrenia. ... http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2006/1798885.htm?ancient - 22k - [ html ] - Cached - 28 Nov 2006

[Super Genius]

The person would have the schizophrenic gene and when his environments, conditions and lifestyle nuture the gene, it would then activate and he will get the actual psychological condition.

[Peels]

In my view, gene is a contributor (can be a sufficient factor in some cases), but not a necessary factor to schizophrenia.

 

Everyone can have schizophrenia if under an extreme enviourment condition.

 

The hallucination in schizophrenia is, in fact, nothing but waking dreams.

[michael]

In my view, gene is a contributor (can be a sufficient factor in some cases), but not a necessary factor to schizophrenia.

 

Everyone can have schizophrenia if under an extreme enviourment condition.

 

The hallucination in schizophrenia is, in fact, nothing but waking dreams.

Looks like you could be right

I just Googled "Gene for schizophrenia" and got all this:-

 

NIMH: Schizophrenia Gene Variant Linked to Risk Traits

Glutamate is a key neurotransmitter long thought to play a role in schizophrenia. The gene identified in this study makes the glutamate receptor (GRM3), ...

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/press/prschizgene.cfm - 15k - Cached - Similar pages

Nogo Gene Related to Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia gene - nogo. ... First risk gene for schizophrenia found in the general population. -------------------------------------------------- ...

http://www.mental-health-today.com/sphra/gene.htm - 17k - Cached - Similar pages

Schizophrenia Daily News Blog: Single Gene Cause Schizophrenia?

Single Gene Cause Schizophrenia? Read more... Schizophrenia Causes, Risk Factors & Prevention. Could schizophrenia arise from a single gene defect? ...

http://www.schizophrenia.com/sznews/archives/001424.html - 15k - Cached - Similar pages

ScienceDaily: Brain Scans Reveal How Gene May Boost Schizophrenia Risk

Increased activity in the front of the brain predicts increases in the neurotransmitter dopamine in the middle of the brain in subjects with a suspected ...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/04/050421094637.htm - 101k - Cached - Similar pages

ScienceDaily: U Of T Researcher Links Schizophrenia, Gene Mutations

The supersensitivity to dopamine that is characteristic of schizophrenia can be caused by mutations to a wide variety of genes, rather than alterations to ...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/02/050218133040.htm - 98k - Cached - Similar pages

BBC NEWS | Health | Gene link to schizophrenia found

A variant of a gene is linked to a risk of developing psychosis, scientists find.

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6084950.stm - 42k - Cached - Similar pages

[arborsvita]

Sch is a most heterogenic disorder of psychiatry. Ther is much more hypothesis about of it.

Combining of hypothesis; gen expression is the most effective part than effects neurodevelopment than neurol network(cortico-thalamo-cerebello-thalamo-cortical circuit) than cause neurocehmical abnormalities than clinical manifestations.

[Kerry]

Interesting piece here on how the dopamine systems in schizophrenics and highly creative people are similar:

 

http://www.labnews.co.uk/laboratory_article.php/5468/2/2/thinking-outside-the-box

 

Maybe we could all develop the disease if under the right conditions.

[PhDwannabe]

Hi; thought I'd add a couple of things about the etiology of schizophrenia. There are probably few areas of psychology and psychiatry that have seen longer, hotter debate than this one. The shortest good answer I could possibly give is that any answer I give is likely to be wrong in a decade. Except, uhh, the one I just gave.

 

Early psychoanalysts had ideas about "schizophrenogenic mothers" that would impart psychosis on their children through a variety of defective nurturing practices. Most of us (I'm a clinical psychology PhD student) don't take this too seriously anymore. Clinicians realized very early on that there was probably a spectrum of psychosis, and that some of it was probably heritable. This was speculated about even pre-Watson & Crick, before any of us knew what the units of heritability even were. Most of us are reconciled to the relatively boring "diathesis-stress" idea that it is some combination of genetic or biological predisposition and environmental factor. Notice I said biological predisposition--prenatal factors are not genetic, but can still strongly affect an individual. Exposure to certain viral illnesses during pregnancy--influenza, for instance--seems to increase an the fetus' later chances of developing schizophrenia. Nonetheless, diathesis and stress interact nonadditively. While this is sort of another discussion, suffice it to say that this:

 

Schizophrenia = X% of genetic + (100-X)% of environmental

 

X from 0 to 100.

 

is not true. Although it seems to be a common misconception (even within my own field!) that it is. However, we're fairly married to the diathesis-stress model anyway. One of the early ideas that is still around is that of schizotypy: what is inherited is a sort of personality weirdness which is not quite psychotic. (There's a decent Wikipedia article on it if you want to read more about it.) Environmental variables can push people who've inherited schizotypy over the edge into schizophrenia. It's often claimed that the inner workings of this process have a great deal to do with the neurotransmitter dopamine.

 

The dopamine hypothesis is a big one--somehow, too much dopamine or dopamine oversensitivity creates schizophrenia. There are a lot of problems with this hypothesis, and a lot of the early findings have not been shown consistently. We won't get into this, partially because it takes too long, and partially because neurobiology is not my area. Many of us think, however, that dopamine may be a mediator of the illness--it's the way that the illness works, not the illness itself. (If you're not familiar with the statistical term, in short: when you play baseball, the bat mediates the hitting of the ball.)

 

To get to the original question however, I can pretty conclusively say that there is not really much of a relationship to PTSD (this is my area, and I can speak with at least a little bit of confidence here.) Traumatic reactions can include psychotic symptoms. Briefly losing touch with reality and thinking that you're "re-experiencing" a traumatic event is one of the hallmark symptoms of PTSD. However, any similarity between this and schizophrenia is sort of cosmetic. Schizophrenia is a chronic mental illness that is really best described as a brain disorder. Think cancer, think neuroendocrine problem. It is probably quite biological in origin, probably involves neurotransmitter malfunctions of all sorts that we haven't identified yet. (Many are starting to think of it as a neurodegenerative disorder, almost like alzheimer's, with the goal of delaying the onset of psychotic symptoms for as long as possible.) PTSD, on the other hand, is a dehabilitating anxiety disorder which can often be treated successfully with several forms of behavior or cognitive-behavioral therapy, among others. Psychotherapy is not typically thought of as real effective for schizophrenia (though it can be supportive in many ways.)

 

The idea that some vulnerability + trauma = schizophrenia, while trauma alone = PTSD is certainly alluring in its parsimony, but I'm not aware of any body of scientific literature which has actually verified anything like that. It'd be a lot simpler for all of us if it did.

[oliverthered]

I remember learning years back, in one of my psyc courses, that schizophrenic symptoms arises from traumatic experiences, but that one has to have the schizophrenic gene to begin with - otherwise, the only pathology that would result from trauma is PTSD. I can't remember, though, if this was just the most widely held hypothesis or it was an established fact, backed by substantial amounts of research. What's the current concensus on this?

 

Cause is a bit of a odd thing.

 

But I have around 6-8 schizophrenic friends and have seen some of them develop into clinical significance.

 

Although trauma seems to be a key trigger, it can seem that any kind of paradoxical state that forces the brain to either chose or compromise can result in psychosis. [for instance one friend started hearing voices, before someone coughed after spending a lot of time thinking about time and the universe etc.... hearing voices because a bit traumatic for him, but the cause was not trauma. ]

 

There is one predominant characteristic amongst my schizophrenic friends that I have not noticed in other people and upon questioning they are able to identify it in themselves, without attribution to any form of psychosis. The two people I've seen develop to clinical significance also had this trait long before any kind of general oddness was apparent.

 

This was one of extreme narcissism, that is there where things that they would refuse, or get extremely agitated about if someone helped them do it. Like they have to do things for everyone and their things are their things.

 

So cause,

extreme narcissism to the point of alterism. (or attaching ones self to things)

and then any contradictory thought process then becomes something very real and personal to that person, and can become clinically significant.

Hallucinations are just illusions is just synaesthetic (say emotions [sense of] being expressed in a visual or auditory sense when the brain cannot cope with expressing them in an emotional way], similar to Autistic spectrum (except autistic spectrum don't attach themselves to things, but can become 'dilluded' to the point of clinical psychosis due to the often paradoxical nature of society and their way of thinking)

 

I know 20+ people on autistic spectrum, I have Asperger's myself, and have just spent the last 2 years solidly researching and experimenting to identify the core differences between AS, ADHD and schizophrenics and scociopaths/psychopaths and other types. Though as I've been into AI and programming computers since I was 8 (26 years) it's been an ongoing exercise for about that long.

 

 

Also Asperger's used to get diagnosed as childhood schizophrenia and probably quite a lot of adults still end up that way.

Classic multiple-personality disorder is the brain coping with a traumatic experience and splitting the personality to cope with the paradoxical nature of the trauma. In someone with AS this can be as little as being touched.

given the similarity I should imagine that schizophrenics have similar sensory experiences, as all I know have great difficulty with emotions or even recognising that they are emotional. None I know have pain and other responses typical in ASD (but sample size small)

 

anyhow, key determinant is narcissism.

 

I can post links to articles and such if needed.

 

 

also cannabis causes one to focus more [in the way that a camera focuses in on something] [ref ask someone who smokes the stuff], for someone with extreme narcissism this focus would be self orientated no matter what the subject matter, or 'self indulgence', so mostly extremely pleasurable.

Edited December 6, 2010 by oliverthered

[Marat]

Since schizophrenics have a poor reproductive fitness, due to social factors which make it difficult for them to find partners, the schizophrenic population would decline by 20% each generation if it were entirely driven by genetic factors. Since schizophrenia has clearly existed since the first clear cases were reported in the 1790s by Haslam, it should be more or less extinct by now if it were purely genetic.

 

Schizophrenia is not really a disease entity so much as a cluster of symptoms which describe the final common pathway of a number of different neurological injuries which result in diminished social functioning.

 

Does exposure to emotional trauma play a causal role in some cases? One thing that is known is that if patients with schizophrenia in remission are returned to their families, and if their families have high expressed emotion (EE), the patients tend to relapse much quicker and more readily than if their families have low expressed emotion (ee).

 

Is schizophrenia an entirely biological condition? Since there is some dispute about whether schizophrenia existed in the world prior to the development of industrial society, and seems to have appeared first in the most industrialized society of the time, England, there may be some social factors involved in its etiology. Schizophrenia as known in the Western world does not exist in 'primitive' societies which are more like Western society used to be prior to industrialization, and the forms that schizophrenia assumes outside the developed world are more likely to go into remission than those of the Western world.

 

These differences could be explained by some pollutant related to industrialization, or by the special forms of life required in industrialized societies. It could even be that it takes a highly structured, industrialized society to spot, diagnose, and count schizophrenia cases. Much is still unclear about schizophrenia's etiology.

[lemur]

In my view, schizophrenia is a label for a bouquet of effects that result from increasing social alienation. As you may or may not have noticed, most psychiatric disorders are labels for non-conformist behavior. This is partly valid, since social interaction increases the liklihood of positive feelings, which relax individuals and cause them to experience less anxiety and coping-cognition. On the other hand, psychiatry tends to reinforce the idea that normal behavior is equivalent to sanity or mental health, which it is obviously not. Schizophrenia symptoms like psychoses and word-salad are somewhat logical consequences of social isolation. Psychoses: because so much of human life involves imagination in the first place; thus people who believe in God, watch TV/movies, listen to the radio, etc. do not see their experiences as psychotic because they are normal and shared, while someone who believes they are listening to God on the radio inside their heads would be considered psychotic. The only difference with the psychotic person is that they are generating their own media content in their imaginations whereas "normal" people are receiving theirs from external sources. Word-salad, I believe, is the result of people trying to explain their complex imaginary constructions to others who fail to understand and are often impatient and irritated at having to listen to them try. If the person is really devoted to trying to explain, they will continuously attempt to seek new words for what they are trying to express and this would result in "word-salad." It is sad to say, but I think schizophrenia is mostly a side-effect of cognitive conformity, which causes "normal" thinkers to become alienated from the natural spectrum of cognitive diversity possible among individuals. If mass-media and other forms of homogenizing cognitive standards were not available for most people to conform, communication would become much more difficult and most people would appear to each other as schizophrenics appear to them now, imo.

[Marat]

It sounds as though you have been reading Thomas Szaz and the works of the anti-psychiatry movement. Some people have tried to argue that the rise of schizophrenia circa 1800 was because around this time the rich world of fantasy and imagination which had always been part of the ordinary objective world -- with its saints, magical places, special holidays, belief in miracles, superstitions of witches and spells -- was driven out of objectivity by the increasing rationalization of society which was required by the rise of industrial and capitalist forms of life. The unpleasant side effect of this 'de-magification of the life world' (as Max Weber called it) was that psychiatric stresses could no longer be relieved by being acted out in objective rituals of magic and imagination, so all attempts at self-healing had to involve people making up their own subjective behaviors to recover the lost magic of the pre-modern world. But because these actions were no longer part of a new objective reality which needed to maximize production and efficiency and had no time for fantasy, the people seeking self-healing through these behaviors were simply regarded as sick and rounded up and packed into prison-like asylums where the conditions were so awful that they completed the process by literally driving their inmates insane. If you look at statistics on the rising asylum population in Britain from 1800 to 1900, it is obvious that a miraculous increase in brain disease cannot account for the doubling, tripling, and quadrupling of the asylum population, but that changes in social tolerance for deviance are driving the increase in numbers.

 

Of course the brain biologists won't accept any of this, but I'm just offering an account of what the social factor party suggests may be the cause of the increase in schizophrenia cases with Westernization and modernity.

[ccdan]

It sounds as though you have been reading Thomas Szaz and the works of the anti-psychiatry movement.

And you sound like islamic fundamentalists who "found" an "apostate"

The so called "anti-psychiatry movement" is largely the equivalent of the people in medieval times who opposed religion, superstition and various irrational and illogical thoughts related to a variety of subjects, including to what we now call "communism" ... in short, critics of anti-psychiatry are themselves extreme irrationalists fearing that their own irrational and abusive systems of beliefs would collapse! this is not a mere question of opinion, but something purely objective and verifiable!

 

Some people have tried to argue that the rise of schizophrenia circa 1800 was because around this time the rich world of fantasy and imagination which had always been part of the ordinary objective world

"the reach world of fantasy" is still extremely present in the western world under the form of religion(particularly the US), communism/socialism(France, northern Europe and others) and nationalism (most western nations)

 

 

was driven out of objectivity by the increasing rationalization of society which was required by the rise of industrial and capitalist forms of life.

That is entirely fasle!

 

 

[...]If you look at statistics on the rising asylum population in Britain from 1800 to 1900, it is obvious that a miraculous increase in brain disease cannot account for the doubling, tripling, and quadrupling of the asylum population, but that changes in social tolerance for deviance are driving the increase in numbers.

 

Of course the brain biologists won't accept any of this, but I'm just offering an account of what the social factor party suggests may be the cause of the increase in schizophrenia cases with Westernization and modernity.

 

Before talking about "brain diseases" you should make sure that such conditions do exist from a strictly scientific (an implicitly objective) perspective! To date, there's not a single so called "mental illness" scientifically confirmed! All such claims are purely subjective social constructs!

[Marat]

I'm sure that nearly 90% of the members of a science forum will view schizophrenia as a primarily if not exclusively biological disease, so it is interesting to find some dissenters here from that view.

 

In support of the biological interpretation of schizophrenia, the fact that there is a genetic predisposition to it that persists even in children who are reared away from their parents and their home environments is good evidence for at least some physical factors conditioning the development of the disease. There are also other neurological deficits in schizophrenics, such as the inability to track moving objects as well as healthy people do, or an unnatural, shuffling gait, which suggest that it is more a neurological disease than merely a pure social construct. Recent research even indicates some subtle differences in the neuroanatomy of schizophrenic brains which also promote the hypothesis that the disease is a physical one.

 

But it is certainly odd that if does not seem to exist in primitive or pre-modern societies, and that it suddenly popped into existence with the rise of industrial society in England circa 1800. This could be due to an environmental toxin associated with industrialization being necessary for the schizophrenia gene coming to expression, or it could be because only a particular type of society produces the requisite social stresses for it to appear. When conditions like schizophrenia appear in primitive societies, they tend to be acute rather than chronic, as schizophrenia in the modern West normally is, so again, culture seems to play a large role in the type of disease that can appear.

[ccdan]

I'm sure that nearly 90% of the members of a science forum will view schizophrenia as a primarily if not exclusively biological disease, so it is interesting to find some dissenters here from that view.

if your approximations are real(I seriously doubt that), they're based on zero science! there are no so called "dissenters" - this kind of terms are specific to anti-science extremists who try to advance their personal and irrational beliefs misleading the general populations with unfamiliar terms

 

In support of the biological interpretation of schizophrenia, the fact that there is a genetic predisposition to it that persists even in children who are reared away from their parents and their home environments is good evidence for at least some physical factors conditioning the development of the disease.

Your very use of the term "predisposition" speaks volumes! Informed scientists should be completely aware that relative concepts like correlations don't prove absolutely anything! There's no such a thing as "good evidence" or "bad evidence"! There's only one kind of evidence: physical, unfalsifiable and undisputable! Being extremely rare, tons of crooks try to fabricate it!

 

 

which suggest that it is more a neurological disease than merely a pure social construct. Recent research even indicates some subtle differences in the neuroanatomy of schizophrenic brains which also promote the hypothesis that the disease is a physical one.

conclusions in science(including medical science) are not expressed using terms like "indicates", "suggests", "promote the hypothesis" and so on... these are mere speculations without any scientifically proved basis!

Edited December 6, 2010 by ccdan

[random]

I believe the majority of psychiatry is speculation. Having suffered a series of traumatic events then subsequently exhibiting schizophrenic like symptoms and then being branded as schizophrenic I can tell you from experience that it is common for a psychiatrist to treat the symptoms and not the cause. I was prescribed an anti psychotic named invega which i never took only said I did and over time the symptoms disippated with no treatment. However I find now that similar situations do trigger the symptoms and I honestly believe alot of diagnosed schizophrenics are the same way. If I reduce stress in area's of my life I am fine when I am subjected to stressors I am not. As it can be said schizophrenia is much like dreaming while awake in some psychotic episodes you can be a great and powerful person secretly admired by the world and in others you can feel as though everyone is watching you and people are trying to communicate with you through telepathy. I find sleep or rather the lack of quality sleep ( dreaming state) is also a major contributor and so it is quite possible for me to self medicate with melatonin in rather large doses (6 mg before bed 6 mg upon waking in the night) and to reduce symptoms that way.

 

For those interested onset of my symptoms was caused by poor diet (I lived on lettuce and potato for 2 month's) lack of sleep, consumption of caffeine and nicotine in extreme doses ( 3 pks a day and likely 30 cups a day) As well as the stress of extreme isolation since I lived in the middle of nowhere ( Yes you drive to nowhere and then go a little further and that's my house) The personal stress I will keep to myself as that is no one's business. Also being struck in the head with a very heavy object which knocked me unconscious.

I am also 30 yrs old which is an uncommon age group for schizophrenia to begin.

 

So the experienced can try and define what or which factors caused the development of schizophrenia or that I am not schizophrenic but somthing else the information is only provided to allow forum members to hear first hand from someone diagnosed with the disease.

[Marat]

Just to try to hone in on objective markers of schizophrenia which could help you with a self-diagnosis, I would like to ask if you have trouble tracking moving objects like hockey pucks or thrown balls in sports, or if during periods of stress you experience anything like auditory hallucinations?