Mass Loss with Schizophrenia

In the first set of photos there is more blue area. The blue area is live parts of the brain that are fully fuctioning. The same subject come back for the same test five years later and the parts that were blue are now pink. The pink areas are parts of the brain that are none functioning. This shows that not only does the brain lose functions with schizphrenia, but a very rapid rate.

Image Source: UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, UCLA, Derived from high-resolution magnetic resonance images (MRI scans), the above images were created after repeatedly scanning 12 schizophrenia subjects over five years, and comparing them with matched 12 healthy controls, scanned at the same ages and intervals. Severe loss of gray matter is indicated by red and pink colors, while stable regions are in blue. STG denotes the superior temporal gyrus, and DLPFC denotes the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Note: This study was of Childhood onset schizophrenia (defined as schizophrenia diagnosed in children under the age of 13 or so) which occurs in approximately 1 of every 40,000 people and is frequently a significantly more aggressive form of schizophrenia (than regular schizophrenia that typically begins when people are aged 15 to 25 (slightly later for women) - and impacts approximatley 1 of every 100 people).

Brain with Schizophrenia

This picture shows all the functions of the brain and how schizophrenia disrupts these functions.

http://www.schizophrenia.com/schizpictures.html

Introduction

I would like to take this time to give you a better look into my life. It has been a long and sometimes painful road to East High's graduating Class of 2010. I started this journey at Bethel Grove Elementary School. This was the place where I found my strengths and weaknesses and became a better person for knowing them. Mrs. Brenda Lewis was my third and fourth grade teacher. She was always very friendly and a very articulate. She is the kind of woman I strive to be when I grow up. She forced me to want to be better. She taught that nothing in the world was free and that if I wanted something I would have to strive to get what I wanted. She helped me to obtain work ethics and learn how to be a leader not a follower. I am still living by her words today.

Capstone Presentation Day is a very special day for me and my classmates. This is somewhat of a finale showcasing all the work that we have done over the years. My project is very important to me and I took it very seriously. I hope that my diligence is shown through my words in my research. Thank you so much for giving us this opportunity to let you see and experience the work that we have done.

Sincerely,

Ashley T. Mayfield

Abstract

There is a strong relationship between the area in which a teen grows up and the likelihood of them becoming paranoid schizophrenics. The teen brain is very fragile. In the teen years the brain is developing and strengthening, so every little thing that my happen in the teen's life will effect the brain. There is a stronger relationship between the area that you live in and the genes of your family. Urban teens face far more obstacles and situations, than teens of rural towns. The different weather, activities, housing, and people all play a huge part in the youth becoming paranoid schizophrenics.

Annotated Bibliography

Arehart-Treichel, Joan. "Is Schizophrenia a Downside of Urban Living?”
PsychiatricNews. 16 May 2003. 17 Jan
2010. http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/38/10/37.full

I chose to use this article because it is written by psychiatrist. Psychiatrists are the people who know an enormous amount of information about mental illnesses and what cause them. One of those diseases being schizophrenia, two of those professors are well known for there advancements in psychiatric. The article will help me tremendously in finding out why teens in the city have schizophrenia than those of the rural areas. I will use this site to aid in finding more sites just like it so I can get a better understanding on schizophrenia.


Beers, Mark H. et al. The Merck Manual of Medical Information. 2nd Ed. New
Jersey. Merck Researcher Laboratories. 2003. 18 Jan 2010.

The Merck Manual of Medical Information is a highly regarded book put together by a staff of MDs who have studied medicine for years. The doctors give in depth information about schizophrenia the causes, the solution, and other helpful insights used to give a better meaning of psychosis. The doctors tell us that drug use can be a major part of schizophrenia. There are two types of symptoms positive and negative. Positive symptoms include delusions, hallucination thought disorder, and bizarre behavior. Negative symptoms include blunted affects anhedonia, and associalty. People with schizophrenia have a hard time concentrating and remembering. Childhood schizophrenia is quite rare, it usually happens during in adolescence. The book will aid in me giving in depth reasons for what causes schizophrenia and how to tame the illness.

Duckworth, Ken. "Schizophrenia". NAMI. February 2007. 20 Jan 2010.
http://www.nami.org/Template.cfmSection=By_Illness&Template=/TaggedPage/TaggedPageDisplay.cfm&TPLID=54&ContentID=23036

National Alliance on Mental Issues is a well known organization that helps patients and true families cope with the patient’s mental illnesses. The site is written in plain English with all of the medical terminology, the site also gives related links to site that have been written by doctors and psychiatrist. National Alliance on Mental Illnesses deals with mental illnesses like that of schizophrenia. The site goes on to say that schizophrenia is a treatable medical condition. It gives examples of the way schizophrenia effects your brain such as making it hard to decipher reality from fantasy.


Gazzaniga, Michael S. Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique. New
York. HarperCollins Publishers. 2008. 25 Jan 2010.

Michael Gazzaniga is a highly regarded Professor of Psychologist at the University of California. Gazzaniga is the head of SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind. Gazzaniga is also a leading researcher in cognitive neuroscience. The credentials that Gazzaniga has his work are highly resourceful and trustworthy. The book takes human brain science to another level. He tells the evolution of mankind and how the brain operates. Thinking through human characteristics, and deciding whether they are in fact distinctly human, is the aim of this popular work about neuroscience. Gazzaniga is a prime name in the field, and in jaunty, colloquial language, he mediates the research of neurobiologists as well as evolutionary and cognitive psychologists. They fail tests for theory-of-mind, the ability to act on the knowledge that other creatures have their own thoughts. Humans innately acquire that skill—as Gazzaniga demonstrates through descriptions of cognitive studies of children.

Lewis, G. et al. "Schizophrenia and City Life". PubMed. 18 Jul 1992. Web. 24 Jan
2010.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1352565?dopt=Abstract

The site is trusted because it is a site designed by the United States government is an online library of medical records articles. I chose the one that was mostly related to my Capstone Project. The article I short and straight to the point with its meaning giving evidence the area you live play a huge role in schizophrenia. Although the article should be a little more in-depth and more informative it gives great information into why schizophrenia has these effects. The report gives statistical evidence in its report. The data shows proof that schizophrenia is more prevalent in the industrial cities than in rural which prove the point of my assignment.

N.p. "The Causes of Schizophrenia". Schizophrenia .n.d. Web. 23 Jan 2010.
http://www.schizophrenia.com/hypo.php

The information talks about how it starts from pregnancy. The biological and environmental states of a person are what determine schizophrenia. The website gives links and cites sources that it used to gather this information. The site is completely devoted to schizophrenia and how it begins and treatments for schizophrenia. The actual formation of schizophrenia has not yet been pin pointed and researchers are still analyzing the information to give direct starting point for the illness.

N.p. “Researchers Map How Schizophrenia Engulfs Teen Brains". UC Newsroom.
University of California. 25 Sep 2005. Web. 23 Jan 2010
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/3591

I used the article because it is written by a world renowned college. The University of California at Los Angeles did extensive research on schizophrenia and found that you can tell of a person has schizophrenia because there is rapid tissue lost in the brain. The school has made a major advancement in the seeing schizophrenia. They use an MRI to demonstrate this is the first actual sighting of schizophrenia. The brain loses tissues in rapidly when the brain has schizophrenia. Schizophrenics’ brain tissue swept over into the motor regions. The rapid brain tissue lost has drastic effects on cognitive and behavioral changes. This will be excellent for my project because this will allow me to have pictures of the illness taking over the brain to give my audience a clear picture of how schizophrenia looks and how it takes over the brain.


Park, Madison. "Teen tries to quiet voices caused by schizophrenia". CNN. 2009.
Web. 20 Jan 2010.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/24/schizophrenia.soloist.brain/index.html

“Teen Tries to quiet voices in his head” is a very reliable article. The article comes from one of the most trusted news companies, CNN, the author of the article is Madison Park is the official CNN health writer, he has written for many of CNN health specials. In this particular article Par tells the story of William Garret who he parallels to the life of Anthony Ayers, a gifted musician who spiraled down hill after becoming ill with schizophrenia. Both Ayers and Garret have what is called paranoid schizophrenia, Dr. McClellan, who is the quoted doctor in this article , tells that schizophrenia in males usually show up between 18 thru 20 which is around the time it happened o these two young men. The article will be a great help to my project because it shows how quickly the disease can transform a person into someone completely different.


Shoemaker, Carma Haley. "Teenage Schizophrenia: World of Their Own".
Teenager's Today. n.d. Web. 22 Jan
2010 http://www.teeanagerstoday.com/articles/mental-
health/teenageschizophrenia-2961/4/

Teenage schizophrenia is written from a person who has studied teenage mental illnesses. The article breaks down schizophrenia, telling how schizophrenia is not a “scary illness” just misunderstood. Shoemaker informs you of the strains and stress put not only one the teen, but for their families as well. The article gives the story of a family who had to deal with their daughter being diagnosed with schizophrenia. The article is well-written and thought out. The plan does not give statistical data to support the findings. The article is trusted because it comes from a website strictly dealing with teens and has been around for many years Shoemaker is a nurse who deals with teens on a regular basis. The article is copyright protected and gives other links to better understand the information presented.

Silverside, Ann. "Schizophrenia Linked to Urban Living". CMAJ. 2004. Web. 15 Jan. 2010.
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/170/4/456

This article is written by a Canadian medical association. I believe this site can be trusted because it is Canadian government information. The author is Ann Silverside a professional for the Canadian government. This article will help me with my project because its central theme is the exact same as the one of my project. The article is about the linkage of schizophrenia to urban living the same as my project. The article does state that there is no scientific evidence that city life makes people more depressed than rural life. There are some significantly different rates for between the two areas. Studies done over the past 10 years show there is two times more people with schizophrenia urban than rural.

Reflection

"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new", is a quote from Albert Einstein. This quote fits my experience with this project perfectly. My experience with this was challenging yet very rewarding not only to my personal, but to my dreams of becoming a doctor. The reason that I chose this topic is very simple, my mother. My mother was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia this year. After finding out my mom had this mental illness I wanted to know everything that I possibly could about, beginning with what caused this illness. After doing a little research I found that high paced lifestyles and a lot of moving is conducive to schizophrenia. During this time of me doing research on schizophrenia my Advanced Placement Literature teacher informed us about the Capstone Project. I took this as an opportunity to expand my knowledge on the subject.

This project challenged me mentally and emotionally was the hardest part of the project in my opinion. The fact that I was working with a mental illness that almost ruined my mother was where the emotional part came into play. When I read that the person who has the illness came have three different stages and may never actually leave what some call a "normal" life it hurt me so much I literally broke down and cried at the fact that my mother would have to deal with this all of her life. I began to have second thoughts not only about not wanting to do my project on this but about me pursuing my dreams of becoming a neuroscientist. Even though this project, at times, got the best of me I pressed forward. I continued knowing that I wanted this project to be by far one of the best one for years to come.

The life long learing I will take away from this prject would have to be the fact that no matter how small whatever you are doing is it can make a big differene in the world. I hope that this project is a help to the mena and womena who are learning about schizophrenia and how it effects people's lives. I want my work to give somebody even the smalelst bit of information to make a life changing discovery. I am a better erson and more aware of what it takes to become a successful person and successful doctor because of the Capstone Project.