Schizophrenia, Schizoaffective Disorder and Schizophreniform Disorders

Schizophrenia, Schizoaffective Disorder and Schizophreniform Disorders

The purpose of the present essay is to discuss schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a mental illness affecting persons around the world. A highly debilitating illness, but with a hopeful prognosis in certain cases, scientists have looked at the disorder from different perspectives. The neuroscience point of view has shed light on the brain differences between persons with schizophrenia and persons without. Likewise, geneticists have looked at the genetic basis for the disease, pinpointing to genes such as DISC1 on chromosome 1q42, which impacts schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder and bipolar disorder, all representing mental illnesses with psychotic features. Other genes such as neuregulin, dysbindin, COMT, RGS4, GRM3 and G72 have likewise been implicated.

Do animals get disorders such as schizophrenic illness? Image: Megan Jorgensen (Elena).

The PANSS is an instrument often used in diagnosis of the severity of symptoms in this illness. The acronym stands for Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale and contains items scoring aspects such as delusions, hallucinatory behaviour, lack of spontaneity and flow of conversation, stereotyped thinking and so on. Thus, the purpose of the present paper aimed at discussing schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder and schizophreniform disorders. However, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder and schizophreniform disorderers are not the only mental disorder with psychotic features, others include affective psychosis and bipolar disorder.

Schizophrenia, Schizoaffective Disorder and Schizophreniform Disorders. Photo : Elena.