Essay Example on About 1 out of every 100 people around the world have Schizophrenia

 The neuregulin 1 gene the OLIG2 gene and the COMT gene currently under further investigation The COMT gene specifically depletes the frontal lobes of neurochemical dopamine when abnormal which can result in hallucinations and impair the brain s reality check both common symptoms of schizophrenia Heredity does not explain all cases of schizophrenia as 60 of schizophrenics have no close family members with the illness but the risk for inheriting schizophrenia ranges from about 10 for people who have one first degree family member with the disorder including mothers fathers and siblings to about 40 65 for those who have both parents or an identical twin affected by schizophrenia Left untreated schizophrenia can have detrimental effects on not only the patient with schizophrenia but also their families and the people around them People with schizophrenia have an increased risk for self destructive behaviors and suicide 

Knowing more about where to look in the brain for the the causes and effects of schizophrenia allows for the finding of more effective treatments of the mental disorder Currently treatment for schizophrenia consists of only medications to address observed symptoms as the causes of the disorder remain unknown leaving thousands of patients forced to take antipsychotic drugs for the rest of their lives These drugs cause many undesirable side effects including weight gain tremors emotional numbing and extreme drowsiness According to Sinead Kelly a researcher at the Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California USC when the study was conducted and is now at Harvard Medical School These findings could lead to the identification of biomarkers that enable researchers to test patients response to schizophrenia treatments She and her team of researchers believe that after proving the global effect of schizophrenia across the entire brain they have shown that studying a single part of the brain where is not going to give the whole story about the cause of schizophrenia Rather future research should be conducted knowing that the cause of schizophrenia is cannot be centralized to a single part of the brain but must affect all regions of the brain