Imaging Approaches to the Study of Schizophrenia

Running head: IMAGING APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF SCHIZOPHRENIA
IMAGING APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF SCHIZOPHRENIA
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IMAGING APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF SCHIZOPHRENIA1
Abstract:
Schizophrenia is identified as a severe chronic disease affecting psychotic behaviour of the
patient. The characteristic symptoms includes auditory and visual hallucinations, dizziness,
bizarre, depression and delusions. Neuroimaging studies has enabled the detection of
schizophrenia and determined the structural changes in the brain of the affected individual. The
exact cause of schizophrenia is not revealed anywhere, however, there are certain risk factors
like individuals affected by influenza virus in the prenatal period have a high probability of
developing this disease. Other factors may include genetic or family history, neurochemical
irregularities and prenatal exposure to malnutrition contribute to the chance of occurrence of this
disease. The paper is an illustration of approaches towards the study of schizophrenia and the
localisation of brain process through imaging observed in the patients affected with
schizophrenia.

IMAGING APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF SCHIZOPHRENIA2
Introduction:
Schizophrenia is a psychiatric disorder that is chronic and serious affecting people
worldwide. The main symptoms of schizophrenia includes psychotic outbreaks, negative
psychotic behaviors, bizarre, depression, auditory and visual hallucinations and many more. The
traditional treatment against this disease includes arrange of antipsychotic drugs that targets
dopamine and serotonin pathways in the brain of the affected individual. The drugs are atypical
neuroleptics that aims at providing increased therapeutic efficacy and offers fewer side effects.
Although, there are lesser known facts about the occurrence of schizophrenia, it is mainly caused
due to genetic reasons and the risk factors are identified as fetal malnutrition, hypoxia, extremely
premature and ischemia. People born in the winter months and those subjected to influenza virus
in the second quarter trimester have an increased risk of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is mainly
characterized by impaired cognitive process and disruption in brain development. Individuals
suffering from this disease is diagnosed using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) brain
imaging and other visualization (Pasternak et al., 2015). Positive, negative and cognitive
symptoms are characteristic of it. Positive symptoms is occurred during psychotic exacerbations
and negative and cognitive symptoms emerges before the first psychotic symptoms and persist
with the course of schizophrenia (Chung & Cannon, 2015). While positive symptoms happen
regularly during psychotic exacerbations, adverse and cognitive symptoms often appear before
the first psychotic episode and continue with low functional results and bad prognosis.

IMAGING APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF SCHIZOPHRENIA3
Discussion:
What is Schizophrenia?
Schizophrenia is a serious mental disorder with psychotic symptoms such as
hallucinations, loss of cognitive and initiative behavior and delusions. Schizophrenia patients
have an abnormal anatomical neural connectivity in the brain (Heuvel & Fornito, 2014).
Schizophrenia is related to a disruption in the brain’s thought process that affects the patient’s
overall ability to think and react. People suffering from schizophrenia have hallucinations and
they believe in things that are not real. The main mechanism of proper functioning of human
brain is characterized by the coordination of multiple spatially distributed regions of brain and
disruption occurs when these brain regions have damage in their interconnecting axonal
pathways ((Damaraju et al., 2014). The emotional intelligence of the affected individual is lost
and dysfunction of interneurons is noticed. Schizophrenia can be understood as a neuro-
developmental disorder with pre-symptomatic risk, acute psychosis, pre-psychotic prodrome and
chronic illness.
How is Schizophrenia detected?
Schizophrenia is detected using brain imaging through various approaches one of them is
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) which Provides data on the brain's parenchyma of gray and
white matter and also on the spaces filled with cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Individuals affected
with schizophrenia have been diagnosed to have a reduced volume of gray matter especially in
the frontal and temporal lobes (Chung & Cannon, 2015). Patients who are suffering with this
disease from a prolonged period of time have been seen to have worst symptoms including
bizarre, hearing voices, hallucinations, seeing things which are not real, delusions, negative