Introduction Schizophrenia is a long-term mental illness that affects nearly 1 in 100 of the population. It usually emerges in late adolescence or early adulthood and is characterized by a combination of positive (ex. hallucinations and delusions), negative (ex. loss of motivation and social withdrawal), and cognitive (ex. deficits in attention and memory) symptoms (Gruber et al., 2015, Opler, 2011, De Jong et al., 2013). From the negative symptoms generally comes a decline in social and occupational functioning, making this a highly disabling mental illness (Meyers et al). The course and outcome of schizophrenia is remarkably variable, with only a small percentage of patients following a chronic, deteriorating course (Parnas, 1999) despite enduring symptoms or functional deficits in most patients (Gruber et al. 2015).
A variety of environmental and genetic susceptibility factors have been proposed as potential causative agents, however the etiology of schizophrenia is still unclear (Ellison-Wright, 2010). There are two fundamentally contrasting theories currently debated. The neurodegenerative theory, the older of the two theories, originated from the observation of morphological alterations in the brain of patients diagnosed with schizophrenia such as reduced frontal and temporal lobes and …show more content…
2011). For example, there is a significant increase in the prevalence of schizophrenia when there are obstetric complications such as neonatal hypoxia, prematurity or complications during pregnancy such as bacterial infection, stress, and malnutrition. Additionally, there are minor physical abnormalities in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia such as small than average cranial circumference, low set ears, as well as different alterations that emerge over the course of the individual’s