Mental illness is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease and early death. People with depression and diabetes experience very high rates of stroke, heart attacks and renal failure. Current research is focused on...
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Did you know that schizophrenia affects more than 1 percent of the world's population? See NARSAD Grants at work on the latest schizophrenia research
Schizophrenia is a severe, chronic, and generally disabling brain and behavior disorder. It is most accurately described as a psychosis - a type of illness that causes severe mental disturbances that disrupt normal thoughts, speech, and behavior. Schizophrenia is believed to be caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors.
Positive symptoms may include delusions, thought disorders, and hallucinations. People with schizophrenia may hear voices other people don't hear, or believe other people are reading their minds, controlling their thoughts, or plotting to harm them. Negative symptoms may include avolition (a lack of desire or motivation to accomplish goals), lack of desire to form social relationships, and blunted affect and emotion. Cognitive symptoms involve problems with attention and memory, especially in planning and organization to achieve a goal. Cognitive deficits are the most disabling for patients trying to lead a normal life.
Visit the Schizophrenia Research Forum, fully sponsored by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation—a virtual community of scientists collaborating in their quest for causes, improved treatments, and better understanding of schizophrenia.
Larry J. Siever, M.D.
February 01, 2011
Personality disorders, while less known about than some other psychiatric conditions, nonetheless pose serious mental health problems. Researchers are gaining new insights into the brain-circuitry malfunctions that are...
TAGS: Basic Research, Discoveries, Other Illnesses
H. Blair Simpson, M.D., Ph.D.
February 01, 2011
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), the most severe of the anxiety disorders, is typified by intrusive, distressing thoughts that lead to compulsive, repetitive behaviors that can greatly diminish quality of life and...
Joan Kaufman, Ph.D.
February 01, 2011
A key environmental factor contributing to and highly predictive of psychiatric illness is stress. Children with a history of trauma or maltreatment are at enormous lifetime risk for anxiety, depression, PTSD, suicide,...
The Garatt Family
February 01, 2011
No one knows better than the Garatt family how far research in mental illness has come – and how far it still has to go. Thirty-three years ago, when Sean Garatt was diagnosed with schizophrenia, his mother, Marcia, was...
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