the cause of schizophrenia is in the brain or in other part of body?
if the cause is in the brain in which part of brain?
& how much is psychogenic - How much is the actual cause psychological/emotional - social/environmental - spiritual/transpersonal?
Hi - we have a lot about this on the following pages of our web site:
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[quote]Introduction
Experts now agree that schizophrenia develops as a result of interplay between biological predisposition (for example, inheriting certain genes) and the kind of environment a person is exposed to. These lines of research are converging: brain development disruption is now known to be the result of genetic predisposition and environmental stressors early in development (during pregnancy or early childhood), leading to subtle alterations in the brain that make a person susceptible to developing schizophrenia. Environmental factors later in life (during early childhood and adolescence) can either damage the brain further and thereby increase the risk of schizophrenia, or lessen the expression of genetic or neurodevelopmental defects and decrease the risk of schizophrenia. In fact experts now say that schizophrenia (and all other mental illness) is caused by a combination of biological, psychological and social factors, and this understanding of mental illness is called the bio-psycho-social model.[/quote]
iâd also add spiritual/transpersonal - But what are the exact weightings here & do the experts know?
Its impossible to tell the exact weightings, but the researchers have told me that they believe that it varies by person. Some people have higher genetic susceptibility, others a higher environmental load.
Would that explain then that with some people maybe things are more psychosocial? & doesnât that have implications for treatment? i just wonder how much is really still known, despite advances, & what can be rationally assumed/concluded?
It comes from the world without color
If I understand the original premise here correctly (maybe I didnât), it seems to me that the Forum has returned yet again to the Search for the Single Cause. (Because we believe we will feel better if we âknow?â)
Isnât it possible that thereâs a spectrum between âabsolutely natureâ and âabsolutely nurture?â Isnât it possible that the causes are complex and diverse? Isnât it possible that itâs case by case?
I have personally seen sz pts who had medical records indicating severe physical trauma in the first weeks or months or year of life. I have seen pts whose medical records included severe infections in the first year of life. I have seen pts whose mothers had severe medical conditions while the pt was still in the womb.
I have seen pts whose parents (because I have actually spent time with or at least spoken at length with those parents) behave âstrangely.â I have seen pts whose parents were reportedly highly physically and/or verbally and/or emotionally abusive to the pts. And I have seen pts who have none of these circumstances in their backgrounds, but whose symptoms respond well to anti-psychiatric medications.
The fact that no single treatment works all the time, most of the time, or even five to ten percent of the time, suggests that the causes are complex and diverse.
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My brain isnât the cause.
My brain doesnât say while im about to cross the street âhey, if you catch your head just right on the front of a truck you wonât feel a thing.â
The problem is in my brain though. Itâs like gwenâs spider video, just imagine that little â â â â â â in your brain except itâs super intelligent and wants to kill you.
There is a profound and complex mind/body interaction. There are innumerable feedbacks from the body to the brain, and from the brain to the body. If we touch a hot stove intolerable pain signals shoot from our finger to the pain centers in the brain and then back to the body. If we see a car rushing towards us the brain floods our body with fight or flight chemicals. If weâre depressed, the brain floods the body with chemicals that keep it sluggish. There are a hundred-trillion nerve synapses in the brain, many of whom regulate bodily functions like pain and fight or flight. In such a complex system there could be many points of entry for stimulus to cause disruption, and there could be many internal malfunctions in the brain that affect the body. There are probably many different ways a brain could become schizophrenic. It will take us a while to sort them all out.
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As someone that loves art direction and animation , thematically and conceptually , there is something oddly alluring about the world without color. It sounds like it could be a nice fit for manga , set in Japanese lore. How did you come up with this , Iâve read this from you on many occassions , its simplicity is oddly tantalising , I picture a canvas , and a broad brush any time I read it âthe world without colorâ. What is your background , is it in art?
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Given such feedback loops between brain and body, but also between body and environment, brain and conscious content, environment and conscious content; it becomes apparent that a linear notion of causality might not cut it here. If so, the notion of a single final cause might not be intelligible.
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Even more so it suggests to me that what is referred to as a single disease is probably a whole bunch of different conditions. Schizophrenia is diagnosed through a list of symptoms, if you have three or more from the list for six months or longer you might have the condition. But in fact thatâs like saying your ankle hurts, when in fact your ankle might be hurting because you have sprained it, or snapped a ligament, or broken a bone. Itâs silly, and in some ways psychiatry is still in the dark ages today.
So I think one has to keep in mind that the underlying cause of sz might be very different from person to person. For me personally it all started with a heavy set of social triggers - work, childhood, moving house, all coming together with also a spiritual crisis - which indicates a vulnerability there.
But it struck me at the time that the doctors particularly asked about drug use (I had never used any psychoactive drugs before being prescribed apâs), as if there was a tendency to just write off the cause as its âdrug inducedâ and look no further. That didnât sit well with me. Itâs as if the medical profession canât be bothered to find out exactly what happens in these areas and so has given up on truly defining a set of conditions, and are happy to just group them by symptom.
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I have no background in art. Though ive always appreciated it. The voices/the people without color tell me of the world without color. Its made of colors humans cant see. Behind the color of all things calling to us. Its meant to be a beautiful place. I wish I could draw/paint. Iâd try and draw the people without color
1 & 2) Very much agree.
- All of the assessment manuals I know of include the question for pretty much any form of mental illness. I wouldnât take it personally unless the assessor presses the issue when one knows better.
Which is, in fact, what happened to me in 2002. I hadnât had a drink or an illicit drug in 18 years, but they insisted I sign up for their substance abuse treatment program even though neither my blood nor urine samples showed any indicators.
The next (different) doc (in 2003) said, âPTSD + Bipolar with psychotic features,â and treated me with an anti-P. I got better, Fast. So I do understand where youâre coming from.
Bingo. Have seen this concept â just as you further describe â again and again in professional literature. Sonya Lupien, Bruce McEwen, Bessel van der Kolk, Peter Levine and others all over it like a wet blanket.
Someone (I forget who, sorry) just said today on another posting about the double bind/ paradoxical injunction theory link to sz. Here is a decent link about it
I think that people are predisposed to mental disorders because the hard wiring of the brain is misrouted.
And that is because at sometime during our evolution a brain chemical went right when it should have went left.