Identical Twin Schizophrenia Research Paper

Schizophrenia is a chronic brain disorder that changes the way certain people interpret reality. (Schizophrenia) Around the world, in the general population a normal person only has about a 1% chance of developing this disease in their lifetime. It can however be passed along genetically. Say a second degree relative i.e. aunt/uncle, grandmother/grandfather or cousin is schizophrenic, you have a 5% chance of becoming schizophrenic sometime in your life. If your mother or father is a schizophrenic, your chances go up to 12%. If your brother or sister have the illness your chances rise to 8% but if you are the fraternal twin to a schizophrenic, your chances of becoming one are about 14%. If both parents are schizophrenic you now have a 39% chance but if you are the identical twin of a schizophrenic your chances of

Changes in key brain functions, such as awareness, emotion, and behavior lead experts to conclude that the brain is the biological site of schizophrenia. Some important risk factors to consider are genetics, viral infections, fetal malnutrition, and stress during early life, childhood abuse or trauma, and drugs.

Exact cause is unknown. It is believed that hormones place a role in other types of schizophrenia. In this type of schizophrenia, physical degeneration is mostly responsible for symptom.

Going more into genetics, family studies have shown that the disease can be inherited by family relatives depending on how closely related they are, this is shown by concordance rates in the book page 70 table 4.1. Kendler et al (1985)3 found that first degree relatives are eighteen times more at risk to develop schizophrenia than distant relatives. Twin studies have shown that DZ twins have a concordance rate of 12 % and MZ twins with 44 % to develop schizophrenia (mcguffin & farmer,1987). Gottesman and shields(1982) found using the maudsley twin register that 58% of MZ twins that were separated inherited the disorder. These rates show that

Causes and symptoms vary between individuals. The causes of schizophrenia are unknown, however some researchers say it is caused by genetics (Piotrowksi

There are a ton of reasons for one to be diagnosed with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a long-term mental disorder of a type involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behavior, leading to faulty perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality and personal relationships into fantasy and delusion, and a sense of mental fragmentation. Schizophrenia can be hereditary in some cases but in most it has been known to be environmental. One cause liked to schizophrenia is low levels of folate acid and defective folate metabolism which mean the MTHFR gene mutation can lead to schizophrenia in some cases.

Schizophrenia, as always known by scientists, runs in families and is hereditary. The disease as a whole only affects 1%

Currently, the causes of Schizophrenia are unknown. Research has tried to identify the causes, but no specific cause has been found. Research has revealed that some factors cause Schizophrenia. One of the factors is genetics and environment. Scientists say that

nature of the disorder. Although evidence has shown that schizophrenia does have a tendency to be passed along in families, other studies have

The most common risk factors for developing Schizophrenia involve genetics. You may be at risk for getting Schizophrenia if: anyone in your immediate family such as your mother, father, or siblings has Schizophrenia. If one parent has schizophrenia the risk is estimated at 13% for a child. Another factor is if your mother had certain health issues while she was pregnant with you such as malnutrition or a viral infection. Non- family risk factors for developing Schizophrenia include: growing up in dense urban areas, the use of street drugs by people under the age of 21, social isolation while growing up or during early years of adulthood, and being abused as a child. About 10 years after being diagnosed with Schizophrenia, about half of the

Family studies indicate children who have both biological parents diagnosed with schizophrenia are 46% likely to develop the mental health disorder. Twin studies vary slightly as different findings are found, Gottesman study in 1991 proposed that identical twins have greater chances of developing schizophrenia (48%) compared with fraternal twins (17%) (Hill 2001). Lastly adoption studies have revealed when adopted individuals are raised by adoptive parents who have schizophrenia they’re at greater risk of developing the disorder (Haimowitz 2005). Although these studies have shown several incidences where genetic factors contribute to the development of schizophrenia, they don’t account 100% for schizophrenia. As they may only be triggered by environmental surroundings influencing the

Genes have been known to play an active role in schizophrenia. It is difficult to ascertain the exact effect because there is heavy variation. Also, people who have a first-degree relative suffering from schizophrenia have 6.5% more chances acquiring it than others. Monozygotic twins have 40% or more the risk is 13%or more the figures surely look scary to people who have a history of schizophrenia and given the above facts, a direct relationship between schizophrenia and genes cannot be ignored.

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder and it usually genetic. This means that if someone in your family has it, it is more likely for you to get it. It is shown that many of the risks of schizophrenia are first shown in the developmental phase of a child. Schizophrenia is characterized as having “abnormal social behavior and failure to understand reality” People who suffer from schizophrenia will most likely suffer from other mental health disorders as well. ( wikipedia). These other disorders are related to anxiety or drug abuse. Schizophrenia is a very specific mental disorder with unique symptoms. Some of the symptoms shown in Schizophrenia is having “delusions, hallucinations, thought disorders, cognitive impairment, and social withdrawal”

The first theory being, the Genetic Theory. This theory proposes that schizophrenia is inherited and passed through genes. As stated in the Epidemiology in Neurobiological Research by Tsung, Stone and Faraone, “greater risks are associated with higher levels of shared genes. For example, third-degree relatives share about 12.5% of their genes, and show a risk of 2% for developing schizophrenia. Second-degree relatives share about 25% of their genes and show a risk of 6%. Most first-degree relatives siblings, dizygotic (DZ) twins share about 50% of their genes and show a risk of about 9%. Monozygotic (MZ) twins share 100%

Firstly, the main cause of schizophrenia is genetic. Due to research to family members of the patients with Schizophrenia, we usually have risk to get schizophrenia is about 5% among the relatives who have this illness compared to general population. For twins, the identical twins have 40% to 65% chances of developing this illness while fraternal twins have 14%-17% chance of having schizophrenia. Next, for the someone who has Schizophrenic parents, one has 12% potential to have this mental illness. However, it can increase to 46% to 50% if both of his parents are affected. The close genetic relationship to a patient with Schizophrenic are riskier to have schizophrenia compared to distant genetic relationships. The relatives of Schizophrenic were often 'contaminated' by hereditary mental disease (Bleuler). Baby of a Schizophrenic mother's still have the risk to have Schizophrenia eventhough the baby is isolated from his/her mother after the birth to avoid the Schizophrenia environment.