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Schizophrenia

Updated: Jul 20, 2025

Written by Paulina Arenas, Edited by Amy Chan


       Schizophrenia is a mental illness that changes how people think, feel, and act. It usually starts in the late teens or early twenties. It’s an illness that not only hurts the person who has it but also their loved ones. People with schizophrenia may see or hear things that aren’t there, believe things that aren’t true, and have trouble focusing or remembering. They might mistake you for both people, even. There are a lot of things that contribute to schizophrenia.


Chemical Elements 

       One of the factors is dopamine, a brain chemical that helps regulate mood and movement. In people with schizophrenia, there’s too much dopamine in a part of the brain called the striatum. This can cause hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that aren’t there) and delusions (false beliefs) (Howes et al., 2017; Mizrahi et al., 2013). Brain scans show that people who are starting to develop schizophrenia make more dopamine than people who aren’t (Howes et al. 2017). This is why most medicines for schizophrenia block dopamine receptors to help reduce symptoms.


       Glutamate is another neurotransmitter that plays a role in memory and learning. Glutamate is a brain chemical that helps nerve cells send signals, and it's important for learning and memory. Too much of it can hurt brain cells. In schizophrenia, glutamate doesn’t work well. Drugs like ketamine that block glutamate’s NMDA (N-Methyl-D-Aspartate) receptors can cause symptoms similar to schizophrenia, like confusion or hearing voices (Javitt and Zukin, 1991; Stone et al., 2017). This led scientists to believe that low NMDA activity might be part of what causes the illness (Stone et al.2017).


Brain Changes

       Studies show that some parts of the brain are smaller in people with schizophrenia. These include the:

  • The prefrontal cortex (helps with planning and decision-making)

  • Hippocampus (helps with memory)

Because these areas are smaller and don’t work well, it can be hard for people to think clearly or remember things. 


Brain Connections

       In people with schizophrenia, the brain’s networks don’t always work together the right way. Brain scans show that important systems—like the default mode network (used when daydreaming), the frontoparietal network (used for thinking and problem-solving), and the salience network (used for focusing)—are not balanced. This may explain why it’s hard for people with schizophrenia to know what’s real or focus on what matters. Something that doesn’t seem so big can really affect someone. 


By learning more about these brain problems—like dopamine, glutamate, and brain wiring—scientists can find better treatments. That can help manage, if not prevent, the illness altogether. Right now, most medicines only work on dopamine. But new treatments might also help fix glutamate or brain networks, which could help even more. Which can vastly improve someone’s life. 


Works Cited:

Howes, Oliver D., et al. “Dopamine, Psychosis and Schizophrenia: The Widening Gap Between Basic and Clinical Neuroscience.” Translational Psychiatry, vol. 7, 2017, p. e1026.


Javitt, Daniel C., and Stewart R. Zukin. “Recent Advances in the Phencyclidine Model of Schizophrenia.” The American Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 148, no. 10, 1991, pp. 1301–1308.


Mizrahi, Romina, et al. “Striatal Dopamine Synthesis Capacity in Prodromal and Early Schizophrenia.” Biological Psychiatry, vol. 74, no. 6, 2013, pp. 442–449.


Stone, John M., et al. “Ketamine Effects on Brain Glutamate in Healthy Volunteers.” Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience, vol. 11, 2017, article 17.


 
 
 

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