Neurochemical processes of the central nervous system and genetic factors of schizophrenia.

What kind of disease is this?

Schizophrenia is a chronic progressive disease that includes a complex of psychoses that arise as a result of internal causes not related to somatic diseases (brain tumor, alcoholism, drug addiction, encephalitis, etc.).

As a result of the disease, a pathological change in personality occurs with a violation of mental processes, expressed by the following symptoms :

1. Gradual loss of social contacts, leading to isolation of the patient.
2. Emotional impoverishment.
3. Thinking disorders: empty, fruitless verbosity, judgments devoid of common sense, symbolism.
4. Internal contradictions. Mental processes occurring in the patient’s consciousness are divided into “his own” and external, that is, those that do not belong to him.

Associated symptoms include the appearance of delusional ideas, hallucinatory and illusory disorders, and depressive syndrome.

The course of schizophrenia is characterized by two phases: acute and chronic. In the chronic stage, patients become apathetic: mentally and physically devastated. The acute phase is characterized by a pronounced mental syndrome, which includes a complex of symptom-phenomena :

• the ability to hear one's own thoughts;
• voices commenting on the patient’s actions;
• perception of voices in the form of dialogue;
• own aspirations are realized under external influence;
• experiences of impact on your body;
• someone takes away his thoughts from the patient;
• others can read the patient's thoughts.

Schizophrenia is diagnosed if the patient has a combination of manic-depressive disorders, paranoid and hallucinatory symptoms.

Who can get sick?

The disease can begin at any age, however, most often the onset of schizophrenia occurs at the age of 20–25 years.

According to statistics, the incidence is the same in men and women, but in males the disease develops much earlier and can begin in adolescence.

In females, the disease is more acute and is expressed by vivid, affective symptoms .

According to statistics, 2% of the world's population . There is currently no unified theory of the cause of the disease.

Can schizophrenia be inherited from parents to children?

Schizophrenia is a very serious illness, so many experts are studying in depth the question of whether schizophrenia is inherited. It represents a pronounced mental change that gradually causes complete degradation of a person’s personality. The disease is accompanied by a whole set of signs and symptoms, from which a doctor can make a diagnosis.

The likelihood of inheriting schizophrenia is very high. Many people are confident that it is close to one hundred percent. Both women and men suffer from the disease. Moreover, pathology does not always clearly affect immediate relatives. Sometimes its expanded form is found in grandchildren, nephews or cousins.

Congenital or acquired?

Is this disease hereditary or not? To this day there is no single theory of the origin of schizophrenia.

Researchers have put forward many hypotheses about the mechanism of development of the disease, and each of them has its own confirmation, however, none of these concepts fully explains the origin of the disease.

Among the many theories of the origin of schizophrenia are:

1. The role of heredity. A family predisposition to schizophrenia has been scientifically proven. However, in 20% of cases the disease first appears in a family in which hereditary burden has not been proven.
2. Neurological factors. In patients with schizophrenia, various pathologies of the central nervous system were identified, caused by damage to brain tissue by autoimmune or toxic processes in the perinatal period or in the first years of life. Interestingly, similar central nervous system disorders were found in mentally healthy relatives of a patient with schizophrenia.

Thus, it has been proven that schizophrenia is predominantly a genetic disease associated with various neurochemical and neuroanatomical lesions of the nervous system.

However, “activation” of the disease occurs under the influence of internal and environmental factors :

• psycho-emotional trauma;
• family dynamic aspects: incorrect distribution of roles, overprotective mother, etc.;
• cognitive impairment (impaired attention, memory);
• impairment of social interaction;

Based on the above, we can conclude that schizophrenia is a multifactorial disease of a polygenic nature . In this case, the genetic predisposition in a certain patient is realized only through the interaction of internal and external factors.

How to distinguish sluggish schizophrenia from neurosis? Find out the answer right now.

The danger of hereditary diseases

If a person has diseases prone to hereditary transmission, he will, under any circumstances, worry about his future offspring.

Let's simulate a situation: one of the parents was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Will a sick child be born in such a family? As noted, with a probability of up to 7%. At the same time, even such a modest indicator does not give anyone absolute guarantees that the disease can be avoided.

The thinking of the majority of our compatriots is structured in such a way that mental illness frightens them much more than any other kind of disease, characterized by a noticeably higher risk of hereditary transmission. The key problem is that, as noted, it is impossible to predict the likelihood of the disease occurring in future generations.

For personal peace of mind, when planning pregnancy, patients with schizophrenia are recommended to consult with a psychiatrist and geneticist. If pregnancy is already present, it is necessary to regularly monitor the condition of the fetus for the presence of any kind of abnormalities, the identification of which is possible through the diagnostic tools available to modern medicine.

To this day, doctors find it difficult to reliably answer the question of what exactly causes schizophrenia. Some consider the theory of an immune nature, others - hereditary, and still others are of the opinion that the disease being studied is formed in the course of life against the backdrop of the conditions in which a person has to live.

Answering the main question of today's publication, we will draw the following conclusion: the risk of hereditary transmission of schizophrenia is present, but this does not always happen. Sick parents will most likely give birth to a child with a predisposition to the disease, but whether the latter will make itself known in the future largely depends on the characteristics of the person’s future life activity.

Therefore, do not panic ahead of time and be healthy!

Inheritance - male or female?

There is an opinion that schizophrenia is transmitted more often through the male line. These conclusions are based on the mechanisms of manifestation of the disease:

1. In men, the disease manifests itself at an earlier age than in women. Sometimes the first manifestations of schizophrenia in women can begin only during menopause.
2. Schizophrenia in a genetic carrier manifests itself under the influence of some trigger mechanism. Men experience psycho-emotional trauma much more deeply than women, which causes them to develop the disease more often .

In fact, if a mother in a family has schizophrenia, then children get sick 5 times more often than if the father was sick.

Statistical data on the presence of genetic predisposition

Genetic studies have proven the role of heredity in the development of schizophrenia.

If the disease is present in both parents , then the risk of the disease is 50%.

If one of the parents has the disease, the probability of its occurrence in the child is reduced to 5–10%.

Studies using the twin method have shown that the probability of inheriting the disease in both identical twins is 50%, in fraternal twins this figure decreases to 13%.

To a greater extent, what is inherited is not schizophrenia itself, but a predisposition to the disease, the implementation of which depends on many factors, including trigger mechanisms.

Testing for multiple personality disorder can be taken on our website.

Symptoms of schizophrenia (just in case)

First of all, let us reassure those who are tense: this mental illness can be treated quite successfully, especially if it can be stopped in the initial stage, and if the therapy was carried out by an experienced psychiatrist. Former patients who have overcome schizophrenia graduate from higher educational institutions, get prestigious jobs and good positions, start families, in general, their lives are full.

Experts determine the presence of the disease by these three types of symptoms that last for a month:

• the presence of extraneous voices in the head, hallucinations, delusional thoughts, which the patient himself considers brilliant;
• disorder of cognitive abilities - thinking, perception, coherence of speech, attention, etc.;
• lack of desire, motivation to do something, will, the onset of apathy.

It is difficult for a schizophrenic to communicate with other people; he experiences difficulties in society. No events interest him, he loses interest in life. Such a person can either freeze in an unnatural position or become suddenly aroused.

Timely consultation with a doctor allows you to relieve these symptoms with the help of medications and psychotherapy. There are now a huge number of treatment methods, so it is important to see an experienced specialist.

It should be kept in mind that with age, the likelihood of developing schizophrenia decreases. According to statistics this is:

• 10–20 years – 17%;
• 20–30 years old – 39%;
• 30–40 years old – 26%
• 40–50 years old – 14%.

Experts offer advice on preventing schizophrenia to people who are particularly concerned about developing the disease. They are recommended:

• do not drink alcohol or drugs, do not smoke;
• play sports, be active;
• treats life correctly, does not keep problems inside, does not become isolated. It is advisable to have your own psychologist, so that in case of emotional distress or indifference, you can get his advice;
• be aware that a burdened heredity is not the end of the world at all, and nothing terrible may happen.

How to find out the probability in your family?

The risk of developing schizophrenia in a person with unaffected genetics is 1%. If one of the parents is sick in the family, then the probability of inheritance is 5–10%.

If the disease manifests itself in the mother, then the risk of the disease increases significantly, especially in a male child.

The chance of developing the disease is 50% if both parents are affected. If there were grandparents with schizophrenia in the family, then the risk of the disease for a grandson is 5%.

If the disease is detected in siblings, the likelihood of schizophrenia will be 6–12%.

Through what line is schizophrenia transmitted? Find out about it in the video:

Risk factors

It is very important to know exactly how schizophrenia is transmitted from generation to generation. In fact, the genetic factor plays a fairly large role in the transmission of this disease

Such danger is distributed with a certain frequency.

• If the disorder manifests itself in one baby of twins, then there is about a fifty percent chance that the second child will also suffer from it.
• A slightly lower risk is the circumstance if the disease is diagnosed in a grandfather, grandmother, only in the mother, or only in the father.
• Only one in eighteen people suffers from the disease if the pathology manifests itself in a distant relative.
• One person in fifty is likely to inherit it if an uncle or aunt, as well as cousins, great-uncles or grandmothers, were patients in a psychiatric hospital.

We can say with complete confidence that the person who has been diagnosed with the pathology, both through his parents and the older generation of relatives, will suffer from this type of mental illness.

The probability of developing the disease is close to fifty percent if the mother or father, or both parents, suffered from it. That is, transmission of the disease occurs autosomally.

If only one family member was schizophrenic, all the same, the risk factor for inheriting the gene remains quite high. It’s hard to even guess what percentage it will be. However, in order to judge this circumstance with confidence, it is necessary to undergo a chromosome analysis.

How is inherited - diagram

The likelihood of inheriting schizophrenia from relatives depends on the degree of relationship.

Compounded heredity can sometimes manifest itself in the form of personality changes, impaired cognitive processes, or manifest as mild forms of the disease.

What is child cognitive development? Find out about this from our article.

At what age can a child be diagnosed?

Schizophrenia in a child whose parents are sick can begin at any age.

Canadian psychiatrists admit the possibility of the onset of the disease in children under 3 years of age .

However, according to the results of many studies, the disease was diagnosed in children no earlier than 5 years of age.

Childhood schizophrenia is expressed by the following symptoms:

• fear;
• sadness;
• cognitive decline;
• speech disorder;
• sleep and appetite disorders;
• retardation in height and weight.

Children of primary school age experience disturbances in communication with peers, emotional impoverishment, a state of excitement, and lethargy of motives.

family aspects as a trigger in the development of the disease in children .

Special clinical and genetic studies of families of children with schizophrenia revealed that in 70% of cases the parents had schizoid symptoms.

A psychiatrist talks about the causes of schizophrenia in children: