Schizophrenia is a severe mental illness in which reality is perceived by sufferers strangely. Schizophrenia may include hallucinations, delusions, and severely irrational thinking and behavior, making it difficult to go about daily activities and incapacitating. Various issues with behavior, emotions, and thinking, cognition, are present in Schizophrenia (McCutcheon et al., 2020). Although there are many different signs and symptoms, they typically involve delusions, hallucinations, or slurred speech and indicate a reduced capacity for function.
False perceptions that are not grounded in reality are called delusions. Various types of delusions are associated with schizophrenic individuals, including persecutory, erotomaniac, somatic and grandiose. Persecutory delusions are those, and despite conflicting information, a person nevertheless feels that an individual, group, or institution is torturing or harming them. Erotomaniac delusions entail believing that another individual loves the schizophrenic person (McCutcheon et al., 2020). In addition to the two types, grandiose delusions occur when an individual they have exemplary abilities despite no evidence. At the same time, somatic beliefs happen when the patient claims a part of the body is affected by a strange condition regardless of contradictory evidence.
Experiences and emotions that are not perceptible to other people are hallucinations. However, they could appear genuine, urgent, and vivid to the individual experiencing them. In over 70% of people with Schizophrenia, hallucinations occur (McCutcheon et al., 2020). People with Schizophrenia are more likely to experience auditory hallucinations, which can involve hearing voices, sometimes numerous voices, or other noises like murmuring or muttering. Voices that the hallucinating person hears frequently make demands and may sound furious or demanding. Additionally, Visual hallucinations are the perception of absent objects, persons, lights, or patterns. It might be especially upsetting to visualize deceased loved ones, colleagues, or other individuals they knew. Perception may be affected as well, leading to trouble assessing distance. Hallucinations by themselves may not necessarily signify Schizophrenia. Hallucinations can also occur in people who suffer from mood disorders, schizoid personality disorders, various mental health issues, and neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
The medial temporal, supra temporal, and prefrontal regions’ lower gray matter volumes are the most often observed schizophrenia-related MRI results. The processing of auditory stimuli, short-term memory, and decision-making, respectively, all heavily depend on these areas. According to twin and potential gene studies, Schizophrenia’s gray matter abnormalities are partially heritable, and intrauterine risk factors such as fetal hypoxia also impact them (Wong, 2020). According to postmortem investigations, cortical gray matter loss does not result from the death of cell bodies but rather from a decline in dendritic intricacy and synaptic frequency, which may affect intraneuronal integration and communication.
In addition to structural abnormalities, functional activation changes have also been well-documented in schizophrenia patients as detected by magnetic resonance and positron emission (PET). Short-term memory and memory formation are two areas that have received much attention in research (Wong, 2020). These processes are especially intriguing since they represent cognitive domains that are disturbed in schizophrenia patients and depend on the brain region, the frontal lobes, and the hippocampus, which is damaged in these individuals.
Not only have chronic schizophrenia patients been found to exhibit impairments in short- and long-term memory activities and physiological abnormalities during functional MRI, but also individuals at genetic and medical risk for the condition and those who have just experienced their first episode. This shows that functional variations are not a product of long consequences of the condition or therapy for the disorder, just like the structural alterations in gray matter and white matter. High-risk individuals can provide evidence of the impact of the gene mutations of Schizophrenia in the apparent lack of disease process, symptoms, or treatment (Wong, 2020). These people include family members and unharmed co-twins of individuals with Schizophrenia, who share the genetic blame for the disease but not the disorder itself.
Not only do those with a predisposition for schizophrenia experience changes in functional activation, but so do those with their first episode. Working memory tasks have revealed differences in functional activation between subjects in the first episode, which is especially intriguing given that Schizophrenia also exhibits underlying gray matter changes in areas connected to working memory, such as the frontal lobe. Because these individuals meet the full clinical definition yet have comparatively short medication backgrounds and are free from the impacts of the disease process that might skew studies in older subjects, understanding that such variations exist early on can help us understand what other variables might relate to them (Wong, 2020). It may be helpful to investigate further functional activation disparities in health-elevated, first-episode, and chronic patients to learn more about the brain alterations that occur as a disease progresses.
The symptoms and cognitive alterations associated with Schizophrenia are typically caused by diminished or disrupted neural connection, which hinders communication between brain regions. White matter creates structural interconnections between different parts of the brain. Therefore, it is not surprising that alterations in its integrity, in addition to the gray matter modifications already mentioned, have been linked to Schizophrenia. Supporting data include white matter volume decreases and structural abnormalities in neuroimaging investigations of the first episode and chronic patients (Wong, 2020). Until adolescence, myelination, the maturational phase in which the myelination encases brain fibers to promote speed and efficiency of conduction, continues.
References
Benes, F. M. (1998). Brain development, VII. Human brain growth spans decades. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 155(11), 1489. Web.
McCutcheon, R. A., Marques, T. R., & Howes, O. D. (2020). Schizophrenia—an overview. JAMA psychiatry, 77(2), 201-210. Web.
Restak, R. M. (2001). The Secret Life of the Brain. Dana Press and Joseph Henry Press.
Wong, K. K. Y. (2020). Schizophrenia and crime. Encyclopedia of personality and individual differences, 77(3), 4575-4580. Web.