Advertisements
Advertisements
I know, that is what was taught for years. I no longer believe it, to be perfectly honest. CNV researchers say they will raise the genetic factors to 90% or more of the risk within a few years, and that eventually, they will have the genetic risk at 100%, they say they expect this based on what they see now.
After being around kids and families with the disorder for decades, I think there is nothing anyone can do to a kid to 'make him schizophrenic'. A lot of other things, yes, but not that. I see schizophrenic kids in great families; even Freud, who was first a neurologist, said his complex 'talking cure' methods were useless for this illness.
An MRI shows the brain cells dying (for example, the cells around hearing wink out one by one and thenn the 'hearing voices' starts within a few weeks).
The researchers at UCLA took a bunch of kids at risk (1 and 2 parents) and kept doing MRI's for months...the story goes that they sat and read the MRI's and cried, because 'it looks like a forest fire'.
The brain cells simply start winking out, one after another, and within a few weeks, the kids start hearing voices, seeing things and eventually other symptoms. Now, opinion is divided as to how often the brain changes continue, and how often they stabilize, and doctors can look at MRI's, see which parts of the brain are most affected, and predict a person's symptoms and severity just by looking at the MRI, with 93% accuracy.
In 1735, Charcot noted while doing autopsies that the brain structure was changed by this disease (and he was looking before medications so saw much worse cases). He saw wrinkles becoming more shallow, ventricles widening. That means brain tissue loss.
We are talking up to 8-10% brain tissue loss - yes loss. There is no inflammation, no scarring, the brain cells just wink out, one after the other. And not in places in the brain where other areas can be recruited.
The treatment of the disease doesn't mean controlling symptoms, it means protecting the nerve cells into the future to prevent more injury, and it means teaching people how to manage the illness and make darn sure it doesn't disrupt their life.
A lot of other bad things, but not that. And I'm sure people can make it worse by not dealing with it (duration untreated is a very well proven indicator of outcome) or by treating the child badly.