Psychology

Thesis statement
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that can affect anyone from all walks and status of life.

Discussion
Schizophrenia is a serious mental condition that affects how an individual thinks, feels and behaves. The individual usually finds it a challenge to tell the difference between real and imagined experiences, to think logically, to express feelings or to behave appropriately (Bermudez     459) a lot of individuals with this condition may suffer the following symptoms hear internal voices that are not heard by others or may see things that are not really there, incoherent speech, have hallucinations.  These occurrences can seem threatening and can make them frightened and reserved. They may also have a difficulty in putting in order their thoughts and articulating themselves. Additionally, their speech and behavior can be incoherent and this may seem fear-provoking to others. This condition has quite severe criteria for identification. The time of onset, length and characteristics of symptoms are all factors to be considered (Bermudez     464)

Causes
There are several speculations about the cause of schizophrenia. These are heredity, brain chemistry, an abnormality with the brain and complications during pregnancy and birth.

Hereditary
According to Hirsch  Weinberger (p    58) schizophrenia affects roughly about one percent of the worlds population and is found all over the world, in all ethnic and social groups. An individual can inherit an affinity to develop the condition.

Brain chemistry
Many researchers have concluded that persons with this condition are either sensitive to a brain chemical known as dopamine or produce too much of it. This chemical is a neurotransmitter which means that there are substances that allow nerve cells in the brain to send messages to each other. Thus, an imbalance of this chemical can affect the way a persons brain reacts to stimuli (Hirsch  Weinberger    61)

A brain abnormality
Due to enhanced imaging technology, researchers have been able to study the brain structure and function in persons with the condition. They have come to the conclusion that, many people have slight abnormalities in the brain structure such as slight enlargement of the fluid filled cavities in the brain (Hirsch  Weinberger    73)

Complications during pregnancy and birth
Some studies have come to the conclusion that an infection or malnutrition during pregnancy or by complications during birth, may increase the chances that child may develop the condition at a later stage.

This is to say that almost anyone can get this condition as it affects people from the most intelligent to the most simple minded. Thus, no cultural group is immune this condition, although the content of delusion varies in different parts of the world. According to Zahavi (p    340) in Europe, persons with schizophrenia are more liable to have delusions of poisoning or religious remorse, while in Japan, the hallucinations most often were linked to being slandered. However, an individual is at a higher risk for developing schizophrenia if they are a male aged between 15 and 24, female aged between 25 and 34 years, have a close relative with the condition and if a person had a medical problem during  their birth. Yet, this condition runs in some families for example, an individual with a direct family member who has schizophrenia has a ten percent chance of developing it or in the cases where there is a forty percent chance if the condition affects either parents or an identical twin (Zahavi    352)

Types of schizophrenia
The different kinds of schizophrenia are based on the precise symptoms a person portrays. Given that the symptoms of this condition changes from time to time, it is highly possible that an individual can have more than one throughout his life. These types are
Disorganized schizophrenia
Paranoid schizophrenia
Catatonic schizophrenia
Residual schizophrenia
Undifferentiated disorders

If a person has been diagnosed with this ailment, or there has been considerable expression of behavior change that shows an indication that the treatment is not responding well, a qualified medical doctor should be called. A person with this ailment should be taken immediately to hospital if medical illness suspected. This condition requires a doctor for analysis and healing (Wong    N.P)

Dopamine (DA) theory of schizophrenia
According to (Frith  Gallagher    125), this theory is based on the close observation that amphetamine encourages behaviors that look like the positive symptoms in schizophrenia, plus the fact that amphetamine raises dopamine levels in the brain.  This theory has a detailed explanation concerning the positive symptoms, but in its classic form, it does not provide an explanation concerning the negative symptoms.

Frith  Gallagher (p   89) lament that the theory posits that the function of the N methyl D aspartate (NMDA) receptor is collaborated in this disease. NMDA receptors are a major sub type of glutamate receptors and mediate slow excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs). These slow EPSPs are considered critical for the proper expression of complex behaviors for example associative learning, working memory, behavioral flexibility and attention, most of which are impaired in Schizophrenia. However Zahavi (p    327) NMDA receptors also play an important role in the development of neural pathways which as well as pruning of cortical connections during puberty, making them a decisive component of developmental processes whose malfunction may lead to schizophrenia. Glutamate is the main excitatory neurotransmitter in the nervous system. Almost half of the brain neurons are believed to encompass glutamate as their key neurotransmitter. However, glutamate transmitters are classified into two ionotrophic and metabotropic receptors. Ionotrophic receptors initiate rapid depolarization by facilitating sodium or calcium entry into neurons through channels formed by the receptor itself. The metabotrophic receptors act together closely with NMDA receptors and may directly modulate the function of the NMDA receptor channel. Zahavi (p    339) is of the opinion that NMDA receptor function sub serves many features of molecular, cellular and behavioral abnormalities often characterized by schizophrenia.  This theory is dependable with the complex genetic predisposition characteristic of schizophrenia because it foresees that any of the genes that controls the large figure of proteins that influence the function of the NMDA receptors would be plausible weakness genes for the condition (Frith  Gallagher    476)  It is also reliable with a strong environmental control on the disease process due to the fact that unlike other brain receptors which are simply activated by ligand binding to the receptor, opening of the NMDA receptor channels rely on coinciding membrane potential depolarization ad agonist binding (Frith  Gallagher    488) In addition to theoretical insinuations, these findings have been the basis for identification of novel therapeutic targets for treatment of schizophrenia (Frith  Gallagher    492) For the meantime, there is great confidence that this theory is at last drawing a model modification in the field of schizophrenia.