Schizophrenia Research Paper Topics

Before going into much detail it is important to understand the general concept of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a disease of the brain that leads to disorganized thinking, delusions and hallucinations. Although the illness primarily affects cognition it can also affect emotion, and behavior. There are many misconceptions about this mental illness such as the idea of split or multiple personalities which will be discussed further later on, (Smith,1993). In Canada it affects 1% of the population or 1 in every 100 people, (Schizophrenia Society of Nova Scotia, n.d). The basis of this report is to discuss in detail exactly what schizophrenia is, who it affects, and how it affects its sufferers. The history of the research done on this illness,
as well as the present day theories, will also be discussed in less detail.
Methods
For the following research paper information was found a few different ways. The Angus L. MacDonald library, which is the University's library, was used a main source. The town library was also used, as well as various search data bases on the internet. Keywords or terms used were "schizophrenia", "history of schizophrenia", "mental illness", "causes and treatment of schizophrenia", "affects of schizophrenia", "statistics about schizophrenia".
Results

The St. FX library website was used and from this the ‘Electronic Resources' link was used which allowed a full list of various journals to be found which provided lots of information relevant to this specific study. This website was also used to search through the ‘Novanet Catalogue' to see what books were available at the library. However, although the library on campus was very helpful the town library also helped to find different books about the given topic that were particularly helpful. From the various search databases on the internet websites that had banks of information given through various passages, articles, and excerpts from different books and journals a great deal of information was found.
Discussion
It is vital to discuss the basics of schizophrenia such as who it affects, how it affects, as well as the symptoms of the illness to seize just how serious this illness is to everyone. Schizophrenia affects men and women with equal frequency. In the 16 to 20 year-old age group, more men then women are affected by schizophrenia. In the 25 to 39 year-old age group, more women are affected by this mind disease. Schizophrenia is one of the youth's greatest disablers. Most commonly, the illness occurs in the 16 to 30 year-old age range, but it can also occur later in adulthood. However, onset after the age of 35 is less common and onset after the age of 40 is very unlikely, (Smith, 1993). Although very rare, a childhood form of the illness exists. Schizophrenia can be found in children over the age of five years. The general population is unaware of how serious and widespread this illness is. Patients suffering from schizophrenia occupy more hospital beds than sufferers of any other medical condition, (Anonymous, 2005). The cost to society due to hospitalization, disability payments and lost wages rank in the billions of dollars annually; however, other costs associated with the loss of individual potential, personal anguish and family hardships are impossible to measure. A common misconception about this illness is that those who endure the illness themselves are the only sufferers. Family members undergo traumatic experiences upon the discovery of schizophrenia in someone close, their emotions are similar to those experienced when a major illness or accident occurs. In other words families feel shocked, sad, angry and dismayed. Some common feelings are sorrow, as if they've lost a family member, anxiety, fear of leaving one alone or hurting one's feelings. Shame and guilt are also common as families often feel they are to blame. This illness may cause lots of problems between parents often leading to divorce, or separation. Therefore, it is obvious that this mental illness is very life changing. It is important to understand the basis, even for the general public, simply because it can affect everyone and anyone.
Now that one has become aware of who can be affected it is important to understand what the illness itself really is. Schizophrenia has been said to be "any group of psychotic reactions characterized by withdrawal from reality with highly variable affective, behavioral and intellectual disturbance," (Schizophrenia Society of Nova Scotia, n.d.). However, schizophrenia can also be described as a real disease (or group of diseases) with concrete and specific symptoms. Schizophrenia is different from other mental illnesses and is the result of flawed brain biochemistry. This illness may be treated by specific antipsychotic drugs and is almost always treatment to some extent.
The symptoms of schizophrenia are personality changes which are key in recognizing this disease of the mind.
Initially subtle and minor these changes in one's personality usually go unnoticed. There is often a decrease in expression of feeling or emotions as well as a lack of interest and motivation upon the onset of the illness. Thought changes also play a large part in the affects of schizophrenia. One becomes unable to think clearly and the barrier to normal reasonableness is established. Thoughts take longer to form, come very quickly, or don't come at al for schizophrenics. Often times one will jump from topic to topic, seem confused or have difficulty reaching easy conclusions. Thinking may also be colored by delusions and false beliefs that have no logical explanation. One may express strong ideas of persecution, convinced that he/she is being spied on or plotted against. Perceptual changes are another dominate change that one suffering from schizophrenia will undergo, (Davis et al, 1991). The world through the eyes of a sufferer becomes topsy-turvy and the nerves carrying sensory messages to the brain from the eyes, ears, nose, etc become confused causing one to see, hear, feel or smell a sensation which does not really exist which is known as hallucinations. A sufferer tends to also lose a sense of their self. When one or all five of the senses becomes affected the person may feel out of time, out of space, free floating and bodiless and nonexistent and a person,
(Smith, 1993).
Throughout the following research a great deal of information on the present day beliefs of schizophrenia has been found, but there has also been an extensive amount of information regarding the various beliefs that have been established about the disorder throughout history. The imprecise notion of schizophrenia has been around for a great deal of time; however, the term itself is less than 100 years old. Because scientists had such a difficult time figuring out this disorder there has been several different myths and beliefs regarding the illness. Different cultures often created extremely different views on the topic. For example, schizophrenia has been traced back to Egypt through written documents as far back as the second millennium before Christ. In these written documents there is information about thought disturbance, depression, and dementia which are described in detail, (Anonymous, 2005). Because the Egyptians felt a strong connection between the heart and the mind they believed that any physical illnesses were regarded as symptoms of the heart caused by demons or poison. The Egyptians also looked upon mental diseases as physical illnesses. A common type of therapy during this time was known as sleep temple therapy. With this treatment, also known as incubation, the patient would stay the night in a holy place and before falling asleep they were influenced by suggestions in the hope of provoking dreams sent by the gods which would help rid the demons thus getting rid of the illness, (Anonymous, 2005). A recent study has shown that the general population of Greeks and Romans also had a brief awareness of the disease, (Evans, McGrath, and Milns, 2003). Schizophrenia was not identified as a mental illness until 1887 by Dr. Emile Kraepelin. Kraepelin was one of the first to classify mental disorders into different categories and to distinguish between schizophrenia and manic depression, (Kraepelin, 1907).The term schizophrenia itself wasn't established until 1911 by Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler. The word schizophrenia come from Greek roots based on the words "schizo" meaning split and "phrene" meaning mind and describes the lack of interaction between thought processes and perception, (Anonymous, 2005).
It is evident that an everlying problem with studying disorders such as schizophrenia is that the tools available during this time were minimal, and full of error. Therefore, much of the information found was of no benefit to furthering our knowledge of such a topic because it was simply irrelevant or incorrect based on inconsistent fndings. Because of these contrafictory findings, rudimentary measuring techniques, and carefully methodologically controlled studies often led to negative findings. Because of these negative findings it was once believed that there was no structural brain abnormalities related to this illness.
As mentioned earlier a popular historical belief was that demons caused strange behavior. Stone aged skulls have been found with holes in them which were made to allow the evil spirits to escape. This method of treatment was common during this time yet is evidently very poor scientifically.
Hippocrates, an ancient philosopher, believed that schizophrenia was caused by a morbid state of the liver, which was later disproved, (Evans, McGrath, Milns, 2003). It was not until the 18th century that it was believed that the mental illness in general had a direct connection to the brain. In the 1940's it was believed that the processe in early development, mainly pregnancy, played a crucial role in the causation of this illness. A mother undergoing traumatic experiences was thought to have a direct correlation to a child developing schizophrenia. Some researchers also believe that schizophrenia is caused by environmental influences during childhood and that the neurological development of children is considered sensitive to features of dysfunctional social settings such as trauma, violence, lack of warmth in personal relationships, and hostility which have been thought of as risk factors to schizophrenia (Brown, A.S., and Susser, E., 1996).
In the 1960's LSD was used to treat this illness, "Such drugs were of interest to us for the treatment of childhood schizophrenia since our definition of this condition is a disorder in maturation characterized by an embryonic primitive plasticity in all areas of integrative brain functioning from which behavior subsequently arises" (Bender, Cobrinik, Faretra, Siva, Sankar, 1966). In 1976 a new theory had developed known as the "dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia" which suggested that the illness was caused by an increase in the dopamine function of the brain which seemed too simple, leading to further research (Abi-Dargham, Rodenhiser, Printz, Zea-Ponce, Gil, Kegeles, Weiss, Cooper, Mann,Van Heertum, Gorman, Laruelle, 2000).
It is evident that the information given has been historically based and in most cases very inefficient, and useless proving to be inaccurate. In the past decade a great deal of research has been done through brain scanning and imagining as well as neuropsychological tests. The "dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia" was built on making it more scientifically acceptable. The hypothesis of dopamine overactivity in schizophrenia is based on the fact that neuroleptics block dopamine D2 receptors in direct relation to their clinical antipsychotic potencies. Dopamine D2 or D2-like receptors are elevated in postmortem schizophrenia brain tissue. "This elevation, however, is only found in vivo using methylspiperone but not raclopride. The dopamine D4 receptor gene has not yet been excluded in schizophrenia because the 21 gene variants of D4 have not yet been tested. Because the link between Dl and D2 receptors is reduced in schizophrenia tissue, it has been tested whether one component of this link was sensitive to guanine nucleotide. We report here that the binding of raclopride to D2 receptors in schizophrenia was not sensitive to guanine nucleotide. This finding permitted analysis of data on the binding of emonapride to the D2, D3 and D4 receptors. We conclude that the combined density of D2 and D3 receptors (labelled by [3H]raclopride) is increased by only 10% in schizophrenia brain, as found by Farde et al., but that it is the density of dopamine D4 receptors which is sixfold elevated in schizophrenia", (Guan, Seeman, Van Tol, 1993). Therefore, it is evident that the dopamine levels are a cause for this illness, yet the hypothesis is much more complicated that once believed. The Density of the D4 receptors is the basic of the problem for schizophrenics. Although elaborated on, this hypothesis will be looked at further upon the discovery of new technology.
In 1984, the first MRI for schizophrenia was completed by R.C. Smith, and confirmed that there was brain abnormalities in patients who suffered from the disease. Between 1988 and 2000, numerous studies verified the findings of Smith. Recent advances in MRI techniques have contributed to a greater understanding of the neuropathy of schizophrenia. The brain abnormalities that have been identified that contribute to schizophrenia are usually found to be small and subtle, rather than more conspicuous. Due to this observation, it is necessary for the measuring tools to be more accurate and advanced. These findings include ventricular enlargement, and third ventricle enlargement. There is also preferential involvement of medial temporal lobe structures, which include the amygdala, hippocampus, and parahippocampal gyrus, and neocortical temporal lobe regions (superior temporal gyrus), (Dickey, Frumin, McCarley, and Shenton, 2001).
Other, less complicated yet recent, beliefs regarding the causes of schizophrenia are the idea of chemical imbalance.
This idea of an imbalance of the brain's chemical system has long been suspected as the main cause of the illness. Some researchers believe neurotransmitters, substances that allow communication between cells, are the cause and others believe the illness is based on unregulated dopamine as mentioned earlier. Children with one schizophrenic parent have a 10% chance of developing the illness. When both parents are schizophrenic a child has a 40% chance of developing the illness. There are many misconceptions about the causation of this mind disease such as the idea of stress, drug abuse, infections, and viruses; however, to date there has been no connection made between the following and schizophrenia. Although there has been lots of research done throughout the past century there is still a lot more to be done. Researchers continue to find new things everyday, yet no concrete understanding of schizophrenia has been developed to
date.
Conclusion
Throughout the following information it is evident that the historical aspects of the illness were very important, yet unrealistic in many cases. These beliefs that were created overtime allowed scientists to consider these ideas which essentially led to trying to prove these ideas which could end positively or negatively, meaning they would simply come to a realization that they were right or wrong. It is clear that the illness wasn't even consider a part of the brain until at least the 18th century and not further studied until the past century. It wasn't until the past decade that scientific methods were advanced enough to even allow research to be done that gave light to this problem. Because the focus was on the historical findings about this disease most people will not agree with the findings provided, but are more prone to agree with the findings found in the past decade which gave an understanding to which parts of the brain were directly affected. These parts, as mentioned earlier, are the ventricles, amygdala, hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, and neocortical temporal lobe regions. The studying and researching of this topic are very important because it is evident that this illness causes severe hardships for its patients, their families and friends. Without trying to figure out the cause which could then lead to a form of effective treatment there would thousands of people suffering from this particular illness which in most cases excruciating lives which could lead to a downfall of a society as a whole. Most people would generally agree with the recent findings simply because they're generally very basic and realistic opposed to those more historical which seem very unrealistic. My answers to my initial paper have been answered because I've discovered the historical aspects, myths, and beliefs of what the disease itself was as well as the common methods of treatment. I've also became familiar with the mental illness itself, which was my main goal. I've learned what happens, why it happens, and why it is important.

Reference

Abi-Dargham, A., Rodenhiser, J., Printz, D., Zea-Ponce, Y., Gil, R., Kegeles, LS., Weiss, R., Cooper, TB., Mann, JJ., Van Heertum, RL., Gorman, JM., Laruelle, M.(2000) From the Cover[Electronic Version]. Increased baseline occupancy of D2 receptors by dopamine in schizophrenia. Retrieved October 27, 2004, from http://www.biopsychiatry.com/schizodopamine.htm

Anonymous, 2005. The Wikipedia Encyclopedia (online ed.).Schizophrenia. Retrieved Nov.2, 2005, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Schizophrenia&oldid=27622265

Bender, L., Cobrinik, L., Faretra, G., Siva Sankar, D.V.(1966). The Treatment of
Childhood Schizophrenia with LSD and UML [Electronic Version]. Biological Treatment of Mental Illness, 2, 463. Retrieved November 1, 2005, from http://www.neurodiversity.com/library_bender_1966a.html

Brown, A.S. and Susser, E.S. (1996). Epidemiology of schizophrenia: Findings implicate neurodevelopmental insults early in life. In: Schizophrenia: New Directions for Clinical Research and Treatment, C.A. Kaufman and J.M. Gorman (eds), 105-119.

Davis, K.L., Kahn, R.S., Ko, G., and Davidson, M. (1991). Dopamine in schizophrenia: A review and reconceptualization. American Journal of Psychiatry, 148, 1474-1486.

Dickey, C.C., Frumin, M., McCarley, R.W., Shenton, M.E. (2001). A review of MRI findings in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Research, 49, 1-52.

Evans, K., McGrath, J., Milns, R. (2003). Searching for schizophrenia in ancient Greek and Roman literature: a systematic review, 107: 323–330

Hong-Chang, G., Seeman, P., Van Tol, H.,(1993). Dopamine D4 receptors elevated in schizophrenia [Electronic Version]. Nature. 441-445.
Kraepelin, E. (1907) Book of Psychiatry (7th ed) (trans. A.R. Diefendorf). London: Macmillan.

Schizophrenia Society of Nova Scotia, (n.d) Youth's Greatest Disabler. Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Smith, Douglas W. (1993). Schizophrenia, New York: Moffa Press.