SCHIZOPHRENIA: A REVIEW

Schizophrenia continues to be a mysterious disease fascinating the minds of psychiatrists, pharmacologists and neuroscientists all over the world for more than a century. The crucial welfare of the millions afflicted with schizophrenia is at stake. The cause of schizophrenia is not yet identified. However, it appears from the available reports that schizophrenia results from genetic, occupational and environmental risk factors, which act independently or combine synergistically to develop schizophrenia. In any case, schizophrenia should not be confined to split personality or multiple personality- disorder. Typically, a schizophrenic patient shows both, positive symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations or cognitive dysfunction and negative symptoms such as social withdrawal, inability to articulate or loss of emotional tone. Some psycho-active drugs such as Cocaine, Heroin, LSD, Prozac, and Ketamine produce positive symptoms of schizophrenia. Brain regions affected in schizophrenia are amygdala, ventral striatum, frontal cortex, temporal cortex, hippocampus and thalamus. The levels of neurotransmitters such as dopamine, glutamate, GABA, acetylcholine, serotonin and nor-epinephrine are significantly altered in schizophrenia. The enigma of schizophrenia has fascinated neuroscientists all over the world to develop parallel animal models in an attempt to discover new medicines for the effective management of this psychiatric disorder.