Posted by Cam W. on March 23, 2001, at 16:49:04
In reply to Re: Celexa--Cam, posted by Kingfish on March 23, 2001, at 15:25:39
Kingfish - Schizophrenia can be thought of as a problem with nerve connections resulting in, in part, an excess of dopamine in certain parts of the brain. The indirect connection of the thalamus and prefrontal cortex are disturbed, perhaps by an excess of the number of connections that a dopamine neuron makes (perhaps because of a lack of the normal synaptic pruning of dendrites that normally occurs as we age).
Aldous Huxley in "The Doors of Perception" talks about a "reducing" valve in the brain that limits the amount of sensory stimulus that brain allows to be processed. This reducing value, in part, may be the thalamus. In schizophrenia, that reducing valve is more open than it should be; thus a person with schizophrenia receives too much stimulus and their brain has a hard time interpreting the inputted sensory stimulus. This may result in the positive symptoms (hallucinations and psychoses) we see in schizophrenia. When sensory overload occurs, some brain functions may shut down resulting in the negative symptoms (poverty of speech, withdrawl).
Therefore, schizophrenia can be seen as an organic disorder. Too much stress can be seen as a trigger to set off schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. The difference in stress levels is why identical twins do not always both get schizophrenia. Environmental stressors, combined with a genetic predisposition, set the "level of the bar" for the amount of stress that can be handled before one manifests the disorder.
I hope that this makes some sense. - Cam
poster:Cam W.
thread:57052
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010319/msgs/57299.html