Schizophrenia is inherited: mechanism of inheritance and risks

Schizophrenia is one of the most complex psychiatric pathologies, the complexity of which is due to its unclear etiology and unpredictable course. The exact reasons for its occurrence are unknown. Scientists only talk about factors that increase the likelihood of its development. Heredity is one of them. Let's find out whether schizophrenia is really inherited and how it happens.

Scientists' opinions

In the literature on schizophrenia, there are different data regarding its causes. There are even separate theories within the framework of which scientists conduct their research and try to confirm or refute certain hypotheses. Some of them:

Dopamine. Increased production of dopamine, melatonin and serotonin leads to delusions and hallucinations in a person.
Infectious. Chronic viral diseases, as well as streptococcal, staphylococcal and tuberculosis infections, reduce immunity and cause mental disorders.
Neurogenetic. A defect in the corpus callosum, which connects the left and right hemispheres, leads to disruption of the coordinated functioning of the brain.
Ecological. Environmental pollution negatively affects the development of the embryo, causes a lack of vitamins and ultimately increases the likelihood of developing psychiatric pathologies.

Psychoanalytic. A bad relationship with an oppressive father or a strict mother, a cold atmosphere in the family, etc. can lead to the onset of the disease.
Evolutionary. The increase in intellectual abilities due to technological progress does not coincide with the natural capabilities of the brain. Nature tries to adapt to changes, but sometimes fails.
Traumatic. Psychiatric disorders can cause various types of trauma, including postpartum and operating room trauma.
Genetic. If there is at least one person with schizophrenia in the family. others are more likely to develop it.

However, there may be disagreements within each of the listed theories. Some scientists claim the existence of 74 or even 100 genes that are responsible for schizophrenia, while other researchers are more reserved in their conclusions, believing that accurate data on this issue has yet to be revealed.

In general, doctors have found a set of genes that can affect the functioning of the brain. But it is quite difficult to draw a direct connection between them and schizophrenia. This is not the case when researchers took DNA, studied it, sorted the genes into dominant and recessive and found the exact chain that influenced the development of the disease. In any case, a conclusion about genetic causation will be an assumption, and not an exact scientific fact.

Today there are 3 main approaches to studying the hereditary factors of schizophrenia:

Genetic, necessary for studying differences in gene structure.
Pharmacogenetic, allowing the correct use of therapy, prescribing appropriate drugs and reducing side effects.
A study of genesis aimed at studying the etiology of a disease.

In addition to studies in the genetics of schizophrenia, which do not always confirm hypotheses, scientists have statistics at their disposal that indicate that genetic factors should definitely be studied.

The priority of the hereditary theory in the past

The active study of genetic predisposition to this disease began in the 19th century. In those days, the hereditary, “family” theory was fundamental. There was an opinion among ordinary people: if there was at least one case of mental illness in the family, the mental disorder would certainly be inherited.

Such families became outcasts; they did not want to marry their members, for fear of being “infected” with mental illness. Therefore, even isolated cases of schizophrenia in the family were carefully hidden, so as not to spoil the family reputation and not complicate the life of descendants. This factor significantly complicated the diagnosis of the connection between a mental disorder and heredity. Patients could not tell for sure whether such cases of the disease had occurred in their family or not.

Nevertheless, in many case histories it was still possible to trace a genetic involvement.

For example , in psychiatric medicine there is a known case that occurred in the second half of the 20th century. The family had four girls - identical twins. Their father suffered from mental illness. Until adolescence, girls were no different from their peers - they studied well, communicated with friends, and graduated from school. Only one of them was unable to complete her studies - she was diagnosed with a catotonic form of schizophrenia. However, at the age of 20-23 years, symptoms characteristic of this mental disorder were also noted in the remaining sisters. This case clearly proved the heredity of the disease.

If there have been cases of schizophrenia in your family, and you are afraid of a repetition of the situation with you or your relative, contact the “Balance” mental health center for advice. We have experienced psychiatrists who will answer all your questions, give advice and recommendations, and, if necessary, conduct a comprehensive diagnosis. All information received by the doctor will remain strictly confidential. You don't have to be afraid of publicity.

Make an appointment by phone: +7.

Statistical data

In general, schizophrenia is detected in approximately 0.5-1% of people, that is, no more than one person out of 100. As for the risks of the disease and the percentage, they are presented as follows:

1% is the first case in the family.
2% - an uncle/aunt, nephew or cousin is sick.
5% - the disease was in a great-grandmother or great-grandfather.
5% - a sibling suffers from the pathology.
10% - a brother or sister or 1st-3rd degree relatives are sick.
10% - the diagnosis was made to a grandmother or grandfather.
20% - the pathology is in the father or mother.

At the same time, the probability of developing pathology in a child from two schizophrenic parents is 45-60%. Among twins, the statistics are as follows: 13-17% for dizygotic twins, 47-48% for monozygotic twins.

As you can see, the closer the degree of relationship, the greater the risk of developing the disease. However, it is wrong to say 100% that having two parents with schizophrenia, the child will suffer from this pathology. There is a possibility, but not as high as many people believe.

Schizophrenia: heredity and its features – Izvilina

In those suffering from schizophrenia, central nervous system disorders are recorded. They are caused by damage to brain tissue by toxic and autoimmune processes that occur in the first years of life or during the perinatal period. At the same time, according to studies, similar central nervous system disorders were recorded in healthy relatives of the patient.

Given the relevance of the data obtained, experts believe that multiple disorders of impulse gene transmission may underlie schizophrenia.

Contrary to popular belief, pathology is not always transmitted to close relatives. Often, schizophrenia can occur only in grandchildren, bypassing sons and daughters.

How is schizophrenia inherited? transmission scheme

This is due to the following reasons:

In men, the disorder manifests itself earlier.
Schizophrenia usually appears after an event that has had a significant negative impact on the psyche of a child or adult.
Since men perceive psycho-emotional trauma much more severely, their disease develops faster.

Statistics say otherwise. In fact, when only the mother in a family has schizophrenia, the chance that the disorder will be passed on to the child will be 5 times higher than if the father is sick. Boys are especially at risk.

However, there are some features:

if schizophrenia was “activated” in a child of twins, then 50% of the second child will also have it, sooner or later;
if both parents had schizophrenia, their children have a 50% chance of developing the disease;
Identical twins have a 50% chance, fraternal twins are luckier - they get sick in 13% of cases.

When only one parent has schizophrenia, the chance of inheritance is 5-10%. If the disease is detected in a sibling, the manifestation of schizophrenia in other children varies from 6 to 12%. If a grandfather or grandmother had schizophrenia in the family, then the chance of transmission will be 5%. However, anyone with normal genetics also has a chance of getting this disorder. It is equal to only 1%.

A family history of schizophrenia may manifest itself as impaired cognitive function.

How to avoid being at risk

To do this you need:

Lead a healthy lifestyle.
It is necessary to give up alcohol and any substances that can affect the psyche.
It is also advisable to establish a diet and engage in physical activity.
It is required to undergo regular examinations with a psychologist.

Self-medication is strictly prohibited. It is necessary to share experiences, this will help to avoid apathy and further development of pathology. Stressful situations or too high loads should not be allowed.

With the right approach, schizophrenia is quite treatable and the patient can live a fairly long life with a clear memory and mind.

Relatives of patients

According to modern genetic research, not only specific pathologies are genetically determined, but also various aspects of personality, for example, a high level of anxiety or, on the contrary, excessive calmness and shyness. A tendency toward aggression, wariness, sensitivity to criticism, and the ability to react to new circumstances may also be inherited.

Similar data can be obtained from studies of identical twins who are raised in different conditions. Even with different upbringings, common traits of character and temperament can be traced. And this even applies to the love of risk and adventure.

In general, the genetic factor plays an important role in pathologies such as schizophrenia and autism. It is also subject to close study when analyzing various affective disorders and hyperactivity. At the same time, scientists find not only behavioral similarities, but also biochemical and immunological ones.

This means that the blood composition, the number of lymphocytes and other biological indicators in patients with schizophrenia largely coincide with similar data in their relatives, even if the latter do not have psychiatric disorders.

Scientists suggest considering 3 categories of relatives who have patients with schizophrenia in their family:

People with schizoid traits - isolation, loneliness, focus on the internal rather than the external world.
Persons with schizoid features and severe emotional defects.
Individuals with schizoid traits with affective disorders (bipolar phase change, seasonal depression, etc.).

Statistics show that about 20-30% of first-degree relatives of people with schizophrenia complain of certain symptoms. In this case, there is no diagnosis, and therefore they talk about so-called “spectral disorders”. The symptoms are quite weak and more indicative of isolation, vulnerability and low emotional intelligence. They are also observed in many schizophrenics, especially before the onset of an attack.

Collective responsibility

Even the first researchers of schizophrenia noticed that the risk of getting sick is closely related to the presence of sick relatives. Attempts to establish the mechanism of inheritance of schizophrenia were made almost immediately after the rediscovery of Mendel's laws, at the very beginning of the 20th century. However, unlike many other diseases, schizophrenia did not fit into the framework of simple Mendelian models. Despite the high heritability, it was not possible to associate it with one or more genes, so by the middle of the century, the so-called. psychogenic theories of disease development. In agreement with psychoanalysis, which was extremely popular by the middle of the century, these theories explained the apparent heritability of schizophrenia not by genetics, but by characteristics of upbringing and an unhealthy atmosphere within the family. There was even such a concept as “schizophrenogenic parents.”

However, this theory, despite its popularity, did not live long. The final point on the question of whether schizophrenia is a hereditary disease was set by psychogenetic studies conducted already in the 60-70s. These were primarily twin studies, as well as studies of adopted children. The essence of twin studies is to compare the probabilities of the manifestation of a certain trait - in this case, the development of a disease - in identical and fraternal twins. Since the difference in the effects of the environment on twins does not depend on whether they are identical or fraternal, the differences in these probabilities must arise mainly from the fact that identical twins are genetically identical, and fraternal twins have, on average, only half the same gene variants.

In the case of schizophrenia, it turned out that the concordance of identical twins is more than 3 times higher than the concordance of fraternal twins: for the first it is approximately 50 percent, and for the second it is less than 15 percent. These words should be understood as follows: if you have an identical twin brother suffering from schizophrenia, then you yourself will get sick with a 50 percent probability. If you and your brother are fraternal twins, then the risk of getting sick is no more than 15 percent. Theoretical calculations, which additionally take into account the prevalence of schizophrenia in the population, estimate the contribution of heritability to the development of the disease at the level of 70-80 percent. By comparison, height and body mass index are inherited in much the same way—traits that have always been thought to be closely linked to genetics. By the way, as it turned out later, the same high heritability is characteristic of three of the other four major mental illnesses: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, bipolar disorder and autism.

The results of twin studies were fully confirmed when studying children who were born to patients with schizophrenia and were adopted in early infancy by healthy adoptive parents. It turned out that their risk of developing schizophrenia was not reduced compared to children raised by their schizophrenic parents, which clearly indicates the key role of genes in the etiology.

And here we come to one of the most mysterious features of schizophrenia. The fact is that if it is so strongly inherited and at the same time has a very negative effect on the fitness of the carrier (recall that patients with schizophrenia leave at least half as many descendants as healthy people), then how does it manage to persist in the population for at least several hundred thousand years? This contradiction, around which in many ways the main struggle between different theories takes place, is called the “evolutionary paradox of schizophrenia.”

Patrick Ellis

Until recently, it was completely unclear to scientists exactly what features of the genome of patients with schizophrenia predetermine the development of the disease. For decades, heated debates have been held not even about which genes are altered in patients with schizophrenia, but about what the general genetic “architecture” of the disease is.

This means the following. The genomes of individual people are very similar to each other, differing on average by less than 0.1 percent of nucleotides. Some of these distinctive genomic features are quite widespread in the population. Conventionally, if they occur in more than one percent of people, they can be called common variants or polymorphisms. These common variants are thought to have appeared in the human genome more than 100,000 years ago, before the first emigration from Africa of the ancestors of modern humans, so they are commonly present in most human subpopulations. Naturally, in order to exist in a significant part of the population for thousands of generations, most polymorphisms should not be too harmful for their carriers.

However, in the genome of each person there are other genetic features - younger and rarer. Most of them do not provide carriers with any advantage, so their frequency in the population, even if they are recorded, remains insignificant. Many of these traits (or mutations) have a more or less pronounced negative effect on fitness, so they are gradually removed by negative selection. Instead, as a result of a continuous mutation process, other new harmful variants appear. The combined frequency of any of the new mutations almost never exceeds 0.1 percent, and such variants are called rare.

So, by the architecture of the disease we mean which genetic variants - common or rare, having a strong phenotypic effect or only slightly increasing the risk of developing the disease - determine its appearance. It was around this issue that until recently the main debate about the genetics of schizophrenia was waged.

The only fact indisputably established by molecular genetic methods regarding the genetics of schizophrenia over the last third of the 20th century is its incredible complexity. Today it is obvious that predisposition to the disease is determined by changes in dozens of genes. Moreover, all the “genetic architectures” of schizophrenia proposed during this time can be combined into two groups: the “common disease - common variants” model (“common disease - common variants”, CV) and the “common disease - rare variants” model. - rare variants", RV). Each of the models provided its own explanations for the “evolutionary paradox of schizophrenia.”

Patrick Ellis

Cognitive abilities of patients' relatives

Among relatives of patients with schizophrenia, if we talk about the cognitive (cognitive) sphere, the following patterns are observed:

Altered psychomotor speed.
Impaired visual and short-term verbal memory.
Instability of attention.
Unusual formation of judgments (abstractness).
Difficulties in organizing an action plan.
Difficulty in copying images.

But this does not apply to all relatives. Most people either do not have these signs or compensate for them with sufficient intellectual activity. However, it is wrong to exclude the presence of these patterns in the analysis.

Influence of the male line

In men, schizophrenia appears earlier and is accompanied by more obvious symptoms. Therefore, it is important for doctors to understand whether it is inherited more often from the father than from the mother. In general, the following patterns are observed:

Men are prone to developing psychiatric pathologies already in childhood or adolescence.
Such diseases progress rapidly in them.
The impetus for the development of a disease or attack can be a minor factor.
Men, in principle, are more susceptible to neuropsychic overload.

However, practice shows that despite all these facts, schizophrenia is often inherited from women. But due to the severity of the symptoms, it seems that men suffer from this psychosis more often. This leads to the formation of a stereotype about the male nature of the disease. But in reality, women get it no less often, it’s just that the first signs appear later - after about 6 years.

In addition, there are other factors that increase the risk of developing schizophrenia. Among them are alcoholism and drug addiction, which are more often observed among the stronger sex. Also, men are less likely to go to doctors, and therefore the pathology progresses for a long time without any medical intervention in this process.

All of these factors increase the risk of developing mental illness. However, this does not mean that it passes specifically from father to son. Although this possibility should not be excluded. It’s just that the mechanism of transmission of the disease still remains unknown.

Modern theories

However, not every medical history is as clear-cut as the one described above. Scientists are still studying the question of how schizophrenia is transmitted and is it inherited? Despite the outstanding achievements and progress in the fields of neuroscience and molecular genetics, the problem of the hereditary factor of schizophrenia has become even more confusing.

Scientists have identified not just one “defective” gene, but a whole complex – 74. Their various combinations and each gene separately, under the influence of many environmental factors, can contribute to the development of the disease. And there are quite a lot of such factors that are provocateurs.

Unfavorable social and psychological environment in which the child grows up.
Injuries of various types - traumatic brain, psychological, sexual, physical, received during childbirth.
Viral diseases that a woman suffered from during pregnancy - flu, colds, herpes, meningitis or encephalitis.
Drug or alcohol use.
Nervous stress , emotional and physical fatigue.

One or more of the above factors can trigger the “explosion” of a “genetic bomb”. Scientists believe that the increased activity of “defective” genes disrupts the normal functioning of genes responsible for transmitting signals or impulses between nerve cells. There is a malfunction in the functioning of the brain, which, in turn, leads to the development of mental disorders.

Influence of the female line

The risk of getting schizophrenia through the female line, that is, from the mother, is 5 times higher than from the father. But the transmission mechanism, as in all other situations, is unknown. Scientists have only specific clinical cases. Therefore, it is impossible to say for sure whether a woman with schizophrenia will have children who are schizophrenic or not. Although you still have to exclude other risks in order to reduce the percentage of probability.

There is an assumption that a woman may be a carrier of a chromosomal mutation that will cause the development of schizophrenia in her child. At the same time, she herself may not get sick. This, for example, often happens with color blindness, which is more often detected in men, but the gene for this disease is often transmitted from women.

A provoking factor for the onset of schizophrenia can be an infectious or respiratory disease suffered by the mother during pregnancy. Also during this period toxicosis and alcohol consumption are dangerous. They, in principle, negatively affect the condition of the embryo. It turns out that there is a risk of brain damage, which can subsequently cause schizophrenia.

In this context, it is important to consider the social causes of pathology that are associated with women. We are talking about difficult conditions for the child’s development and the lack of full care for him. But in any case, schizophrenia becomes a consequence of many reasons, which should include biochemical pathologies, organic brain damage, etc.

Is schizophrenia a genetic disease or not?

If you retell a very strange dream and explain that you find many similarities in it with real life, will they think that you have schizophrenia? Or are you he? How to recover after the loss of a loved one and not go crazy with grief? At what point in time will your inner voice tell you that your soul no longer hurts? Or will he begin to talk to you in the voices of strangers and show you calming dreams that turn into your personal reality? This is the main question of the emergence of schizophrenia as a genetic disease or acquired. But even in relation to people who commit actions from a range of normal behavior, psychology finds explanations for the state of the body that are not related to the stages of the disease:

frustration;
affect;
depression;
euphoria;
apathy;
autism (the origin of which is also vigorously debated by experts).

From the editor: Causes, symptoms and methods of treatment of VSD of the hypotonic type

There is an opinion that schizophrenia is not a hereditary gene, but a common gene of humanity that arises against the background of personal perception of any situation that arises in life once or is repeated with precise frequency, which allows the development of the disease to begin. In addition, in women, manifestations of schizophrenia are recorded to a greater extent than in men. Which confirms this theory, because the female sex is much more likely to pass everything through the heart.

How to influence genes

So, inheritance of the pathology in question is an assumption that is not exactly confirmed by scientific data. Genetic conditioning is considered as one of the provoking factors. To date, there is no identified gene that would definitely lead to this disease. In most cases, we are talking about a set of genes that could hypothetically become the impetus for the development of schizophrenia.

But is the predisposition itself, when there is such a diagnosis in the anamnesis of relatives, a “time bomb”? Should a person whose grandmother, mother or sister suffers/suffered from this illness constantly check their mental health?

Consider the example of alcoholism. Not a single doctor can name its exact reasons either. There is always a group of factors, despite the fact that many researchers claim to have found the gene for this disease. Even if this is the case, it is not possible to influence it.

Moreover, alcoholism is almost 50% caused by the environment. If there is also a genetic predisposition, then this percentage becomes slightly higher. But influencing this, that is, preventing the disease, can only be done by influencing social factors: not visiting places where they drink a lot, leading a healthy lifestyle, coming for consultations with a psychologist, etc.

In almost all cases, there must be a push for the incorrect genes to express themselves. If this provoking factor is not present, perhaps a person, even with a large set of genes that hypothetically cause schizophrenia, will live a quiet life without any hints of psychiatric disorders.

Let us give another example directly related to the disease in question. Let's imagine identical twins whose genes are the same. If one of them develops schizophrenia, the risk of the other developing it is less than 50%. This means that there are other reasons that are not related to heredity.

Time bomb?

And this is where the fun begins. It is impossible to detect the presence of a “wrong” gene using genetic testing. In a specialized consultation, specialists will describe the client’s risks, and by examining the fetus in the expectant mother’s womb, they can indicate the presence or absence of a defect.

However, there are diseases caused by several genes, of which there are from two to ten. Let's look at this situation using the example of rheumatism. Is there any heredity for it? No! The whole point is this: to get sick, it is not enough to be a carrier of rheumatism genes; you also need to catch group A hemolytic streptococcus. That is, this is simply a feature of the immune system, which is easily affected.

What is the situation with schizophrenics if they have a different set of “damaged” genes? This means that for some it is, for example, ABC, for others it is AB, and for others it is only C and the like. There is one thing in common: their functions affect brain development, preventing the process from proceeding normally. And the more such suspicious genes there are, the higher the likelihood of developing a mental disorder. And one more thing: the risk is increased by 16 times by defects in genes on the third chromosome, and by 8 times on the sixteenth.

Despite many years of efforts by geneticists, they cannot create a profile of a schizophrenic. That is, there is no test yet that can answer the question of the possibility of getting sick.

As already mentioned, in order for “bad” genes to manifest themselves, they need some kind of push. If there is none, then the carrier, having them in large quantities, will not get sick. Exactly what external factors these should be is unknown.

Let's take identical twins, who have the same everything, including genes. But one of them has schizophrenia, and the other is completely healthy, and his risk of getting sick is 46%. Why not 100%, you ask? The answer is: some of the patient’s genes were locked by a methyl group, and because of this “lock,” they stopped functioning, and brain development was disrupted.

Where did this group come from? It is unknown, but it has been suggested that the influenza virus is to blame, since the boys’ mother, while pregnant, had it.

According to current data, the risk of schizophrenia in a child due to influenza suffered by the expectant mother increases by 1.5-7 times. However, this is not due specifically to the virus, but to an overly strong immune reaction of the woman’s body, which increased the amount of interleukin-8. But you need to know: not all such cases can provoke the development of mental illness in the offspring.

No predisposition

About 10% of patients with schizophrenia do not have a genetic predisposition. At least, none of the relatives in several generations can detect it. Doctors can study the anamnesis of all relatives that are provided. It is not a fact that signs of a mental disorder will be found, in principle.

This means that people who hypothetically should never get sick, according to proponents of the genetic theory, are also at risk of encountering this pathology. Moreover, 10% of patients, which statistics indicate, is a fairly high figure.

Other risk factors

People who have a relative with schizophrenia are advised to rule out other risk factors. If you are a carrier of genes that cause schizophrenia, you should play it safe and take all possible measures to prevent pathology. Some of the risk factors were described above in the theories and hypotheses section. Let us list the psychological and social reasons. Among the first:

Closedness, focus on your inner world.
Passivity, suspicion, stubbornness.
Tendency to talk at length.
Difficulty in formulating thoughts.
Inadequate emotional reactions.

The last paragraph deals with situations where unimportant events greatly affect a person, and serious tragedies do not cause any emotional response. These symptoms may indicate a person is susceptible to schizophrenia. If the child has them, he should be shown to a psychologist or psychiatrist.

Social factors, which refer to the influence of the environment, include:

Uncomfortable living conditions - overcrowded city, large number of people in the apartment. All this leads to high levels of stress.
Social status. If it is low, and a person does not have a good job and income, the likelihood of psychosis increases.
Negative family relationships. We are talking about conflicts, excessive hostility, suspicions, constant criticism, etc.

The causes of schizophrenia can be listed almost endlessly: alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual or other violence, trauma, etc. In addition, it is worth understanding that this pathology is diverse. It takes a variety of forms - paroxysmal, paranoid, sluggish, etc. Some patients with such diagnoses live normal lives, while others die or become incapacitated.

However, in all cases it is recommended to start treatment as early as possible. To do this, you need to detect the first signs in time. A big role in this is given to relatives, through whose efforts it is often possible to bring a person for the first examination.

Main symptoms

Symptoms are determined by the type and form of the disease. However, there are a number of signs that are characteristic of almost all varieties of this pathology:

Openness of thoughts. It seems to a person that all his thoughts are accessible to others.
Problems with thinking. Often, schizophrenics are prone to lengthy reasoning. At the same time, they constantly get confused, confused and cannot fully formulate what they want to convey to others.
Rave. The patient feels that his thoughts, actions and feelings are controlled by someone else.
Hallucinations and pseudohallucinations. The latter differ from the former in that a person does not identify images, voices, sounds and smells with real-life objects and objects.
Emotional disturbances. As a rule, patients have a tendency to apathy and pathological experiences.

There are also less obvious signs, which are called negative (negative) symptoms, indicating a decrease in mental activity:

lack of initiative;
decreased memory and attention;
fast fatiguability;
loss of interest in something;
lethargy or lack of facial expressions;
isolation and tendency to loneliness;
inability to enjoy life.

In adults, loss of communication abilities, professional unsuitability and suicidal behavior are observed. In children, you may notice the following signs of the disease:

Inexplicable fear. The child refuses to go into the room or go to this or that place, screams, resists and throws tantrums for no apparent reason. Often children with this diagnosis tell stories about scary creatures and even show the places where they are located.
Strange fantasies. During stories about movie or comic book characters, the child becomes so immersed in his role that he cannot get out of it for a long time.
Decrease in intelligence. He becomes less attentive, does not remember new information well, and his performance at school drops.
Strange actions. The child constantly looks around, listens, or speaks in a whisper all the time. It is possible that he hears voices and does not understand that they are only in his head.
Inappropriate emotions. Expresses them disproportionately to the situation. Cries, laughs, is happy or upset when there are no objective reasons for this.
Manifestations of cruelty. The child becomes more aggressive, communicates less often with peers, and has a tendency to violence against animals or toys.

Some of these signs, in one form or another, can be found in healthy children with poor upbringing. It is important not to ignore them, since schizophrenia, which began early, leads to more severe consequences than the same pathology that occurs in an adult.

Can heredity cause schizophrenia?

Until recently, the mechanism of the disease was unknown, but thanks to the development of neurobiology, it is gradually becoming clearer. It turned out that schizophrenia is preceded by pathogenic factors such as schizoid heredity, unfavorable living conditions in childhood, socio-psychological factors, and disorders in the neurobiological apparatus. It is impossible to state unequivocally that schizophrenia is inherited, that the appearance of the disease depends on whether the father or mother suffered from it. At the same time, it is impossible to categorically state that schizophrenia develops as a consequence of brain injury in each specific case. Today, the neurobiological causes of the disease are being actively studied, but the only correct mechanism for the development of the disease has not yet been identified.

In psychopathology, the word neurosis refers to a family of mental disorders of mental origin, where the subject, unlike psychosis, retains a sense of reality. The meaning of neurosis is very diverse over time and depends on different trends in psychiatry and psychopathology.

Modern psychopathology is consistent with the negative definition of neuroses as a set of behavioral disorders that are not considered to have an organic pathogenesis. Freud, who insisted on the purely psychic origin of hysteria, which he believed was caused by mental ideas that the subject could not accept, based psychoanalysis on the psychogenic concept of neurosis.

Scientists have not been able to fully determine how much heredity influences schizophrenia. Basically, the low reliability of diagnostic results is associated with problems of taking into account genetic factors and the influence of the environment on the patient. As a rule, schizophrenia, even if it is inherited, is in its infancy, as an innate predisposition to the disease. The fact is that schizophrenia, caused by a schizoid mother or father, manifests itself depending on stress factors coming from the environment. The theory that schizophrenia is hereditary, passed on to the child by a mother or father, suggests that a person is simultaneously exposed to genetic, biological, environmental stress and psychological factors.

Although it seems that scientists have not been able to establish a direct connection between the disease and genetics, there is some recorded evidence suggesting an affirmative answer to the hypothesis. Studies have shown that among twins whose mother or father is ill, there is a high degree of predisposition to the disease. This clearly indicates that schizophrenia is inherited. Moreover, as a rule, it is passed on to the children by the mother or other close relatives. Inheritance is quite complex. For an illness to appear, a huge number of factors and pathological processes must come together so that they subsequently develop into schizophrenia.

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Scientists have discovered that not only schizophrenia is passed on to a person from their parents, but also a tendency to other disorders, such as, for example, biopolar. Recent studies conducted after studying the DNA of patients have shown that the mother or father can transmit schizophrenia due to random mutations in certain genes that cause the development of the disease. The mother may also pass on the predisposition during pregnancy. Studies have shown that the embryo often “gets” schizophrenia due to colds and infectious diseases experienced during the prenatal period of its existence. According to medical statistics, schizophrenia is more often diagnosed in children born in spring or winter, when influenza is most common, which, as it seems to scientists, is the cause of disruption of intrauterine development of the fetus.

When it appears

Medical practice shows that with age the risk of developing schizophrenia decreases. According to statistics, the disease manifests itself with the following frequency:

10-20 years - 17%.
20-30 years old - 39%.
30-40 years old - 26%.
40-50 years old - 14%.

More precisely, at first the risk becomes higher and higher. This continues until about 30 years of age. Subsequently, the likelihood of getting sick is much less. However, it can manifest itself either a few years after birth or in old age. The risk is less, but it still exists.

What to do

So, schizophrenia can be congenital (hereditary) and acquired. No doctor can give the exact reasons. If you have a genetic predisposition, you should not be afraid of the disease for the rest of your life. However, if possible, other risk factors should be removed.

Schizophrenia cannot be completely cured. But this does not mean that you can ignore it or, on the contrary, despair. In many cases, doctors manage to stop the symptoms of the disease permanently or for many years. The main thing is to start treatment immediately in order to prevent serious damage to the personality or its complete destruction.

Science does not stand still. Perhaps in 10-20 years scientists will find a way to completely rid a person of this dangerous disease. However, reversing the disease is possible only if the unhealthy personality has not supplanted the real one. With a serious schizophrenic defect, a person loses his legal capacity. There is a possibility of death.