Evolution and Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a complex psychiatric disorder which persists despite its disadvantagous effects. Here, Niladri Banerjee describes work undertaken by himself and colleagues and published in BMC Evolutionary Biology that investigates whether methylated regions that differ between us, Neanderthals and Denisovans are enriched with single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) known to be associated with the disease.
Niladri Banerjee 11 May 2018
Schizophrenia conjures up many images in one’s mind. Popular culture has depicted characters with the disease in films such as ‘Fight Club’ and ‘A Beautiful Mind’. But what is the disease really?
There are records since at least the emergence of the written alphabet, that describe signs and symptoms which today would be called schizophrenia.
For starters, schizophrenia is extremely complex and manifests itself in myriad ways. It is a psychiatric disorder that primarily affects one of the most, if not the most, important organs in our body: the brain. In the clinic, a presentation of the so-called positive symptoms: hallucinations and delusions along with negative symptoms: apathy and depression for a period lasting anywhere from one to six months tends to be classified under the category of Schizophrenia.
https://blogs.biomedcentral.com/bmcseriesblog/2018/05/11/evolution-and-schizophrenia/
