What is Schizophrenia?
Schizophrenia is a brain disorder that affects about 1 out of every 100 adults in America, which is more than 2 million people. People with schizophrenia encounter a variety of difficulties interacting with other people, having meaningful jobs, and enjoying life.
The symptoms of schizophrenia that cause these difficulties can be divided into "positive" and "negative" categories. Positive symptoms are those that are present but should not be, such as hallucinations, which means seeing or hearing things that are not there, delusions, or believing in things that are not based in reality, and thought disorder, or trouble thinking and speaking clearly. Negative symptoms, those that are missing but should be present, are often less noticeable but can have just as unpleasant an effect on the lives of people who have schizophrenia. Examples are avoidance of social situations or emotional contact, inability to properly express feelings, and loss of pleasure or interest in life.
There are different types of schizophrenia, each with distinctive signs and symptoms:
- Catatonic schizophrenia is characterized by severe negative symptoms including social isolation and slowed or disturbed psychomotor activity.
- Disorganized schizophrenia features incoherent thoughts, inappropriate emotions, and the inability to focus, make decisions, or act in a way that makes sense.
- Paranoid schizophrenia involves suspicion of other people and a feeling of being persecuted.
- A person with residual schizophrenia is not currently experiencing psychotic symptoms but may still be feeling down or unmotivated.
- If someone's symptoms do not clearly fit into one of these subcategories, he or she may be diagnosed with undifferentiated schizophrenia.
Scientists know about a lot of specific areas that are affected in schizophrenia, and at our lab we study a variety of areas of interest.