Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that can vary in severity across different people.  Positive symptoms of Schizophrenia include delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, and disorganized behavior, whereas negative symptoms include weak or absent emotion, speech, and socialization.  In order to diagnose an individual with Schizophrenia, two of the previously stated symptoms must be present and the individual must have deteriorated in everyday functioning for at least 6 months.  Researchers believe there may be a genetic link or predisposition to developing Schizophrenia; however, all attempts at identifying single genes have failed.  One new hypothesis behind a genetic predisposition for Schizophrenia is that mutations are arising in our genes that may cause Schizophrenia.  There is also evidence to suggest that damage to certain parts of the prefrontal cortex may cause Schizophrenia.  Even more surprising, however, is this article that found evidence between genes and cannabis use that may cause Schizophrenia.  There are psycho-therapeutic methods that can be used to treat Schizophrenia as well as antipsychotics that can be prescribed as treatment.

This is a video of a documentary done by Oprah on a young girl diagnosed with Schizophrenia: