Here's Why People Get Schizophrenia, Scientists Say
In a recent study conducted, scientist focused on
understanding the origin of schizophrenia and trying to understand whether it
was gene or illness related. Schizophrenia is a long-term mental disorder that
causes individuals to hear voices or see things that aren’t there, or develop
irrational delusions; they may display disorganized thinking, agitated body
movements or emotional withdrawal. Everyone undergoes a brain process of what
is called “synaptic pruning”. Synaptic pruning refers to the process of
neurological regulation. During this process there is a change in the neural
structure by eliminating the number of neurons or connections to increase the
efficiency of function. A gene involved in synaptic pruning may be the cause of
increasing a person’s risk of developing schizophrenia. The gene involved is
the C4 gene. The C4 gene normally acts as a regulatory gene of the immune
system. Analysis of 65,00 people who had a particular form of the C4 gene demonstrated
a higher expression of that gene and a higher risk of developing schizophrenia.
Synaptic pruning is active during adolescence, which is usually when Schizophrenia
symptoms begin to occur. If the C4 gene undergoes mutation during synaptic
pruning it causes thing to go wrong. What begins to occur is the removal of too
many synapses. This results in brain wiring, which does not allow the brain to
undergo basic functions that it used to be able to perform.
In my opinion, this article demonstrates decent background information on how the C4 gene is connected in the development of schizophrenia and its effect on people at risk of having it. It looks at schizophrenia from the perspective of brain process and reflects back on the persons adolescent years which is reasonable. Overall I think this article presented new information on a topic that is always in need of answers and studying.
This is a very interesting article. I would like to see more research on it
ReplyDeleteI agree that this topic is always in need of answers and studying. It is crazy that just one single gene involved in synaptic pruning may be the cause of increasing a person’s risk of developing schizophrenia. One gene is the possible fault for thousands of people having this disorder.
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