In the article “Runs in the Family: New findings about schizophrenia rekindle old questions about genes and identity,” the author explores the genetic perspective of schizophrenia and how the disease can be in a family. Mukherjee takes a ride down memory lane to bring to the audience how several members of his family have either been diagnosed with or shown symptoms of mental illness. He and his father go to visit his cousin, Moni, who is 52 and has been confined to a mental care home which his father refers to as “lunatic home (Mukherjee, 2016).” Moni has been awash by sedatives and antipsychotics, and Mukherjee's father has never accepted that his eldest brother’s son was diagnosed with the mental disorder. The author reveals that the visit is more than just familial visit. He states, “Two of my father’s four brothers suffered from various unraveling of the mind. Madness has been among the Mukherjees for generations, and at least part of my father’s reluctance to accept Moni’s diagnosis lies in a grim suspicion that something of the illness may be buried, like toxic waste, in him-self (Mukherjee, 2016).” By focusing on the story of his lineage, he provides the reader with some of the symptoms of schizophrenia while also shed light on the possible denial of the genetic context of the disorder, as exhibited by his father. The author’s main point, as the title suggests, is that the disease runs in the family. The primary audience of the article is the individuals who are empathetic with the family.
In the article, the destruction of brain neurotransmitters has been highly linked to schizophrenia. The C4A protein, which is responsible for pruning the synapses are in excess in schizophrenic patients which leads to over-pruning. The parts of the brain that are profoundly affected by the abundance of C4A protein are that which is responsible for thinking, planning, and cognition while the less noticeable and which remains intact are those that deal with speech, posture, and balance.
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The author tackles symptoms, and the first one is antisocial behavior, which is a negative clinical manifestation. In this case, the individual secludes himself from the others, and not seeing the joy in social interaction. The author’s uncle Jagu exhibited this type of symptom in what he writes “Jagu continued to live at home, half hid away in my grandmother’s room.” The other negative symptoms included apathy where the uncle felt no sense of emotion and went away after the grandmother’s death. A positive clinical manifestation includes hallucinations. In this case, the patient hears, feels, or visions what is nonexistent as the author writes “By 1975, he had visions, phantasms, and voices in his head that told him what to do (Mukherjee, 2016).” The patients with schizophrenia can also experience disorganized symptoms such as speech changes, as in the case of Moni. They can have difficulty in concentrating as well as an outburst of behavior.
Psychotic stress has been highly indicated as a factor in the development of schizophrenia, especially during the neurodevelopment (Van Winkel et al., 2008). Stress may result in smaller volumes of the hippocampus. Emotional reactivity that is associated with day-to-day activities can increase psychosis. Other physical factors include substance abuse, the season of birth, family size, uterine environment, geographical variations and environmental toxicants.
The medication treatments are mainly antipsychotics and sedatives which are used to adjust the neurotransmitter dopamine for the control of symptoms (Kane & Correll, 2010). However, these drugs have side effects thus the patients may refrain from taking them. Psychological treatment is therefore used in addition to the pharmacological. They include social skills training that focus on completion of day to day tasks to restore functionality in the society (Chien et al., 2013). Group therapies are also used and family involved in the education on schizophrenia. The primary intervention is the cognitive behavior therapy to test delusion.
The genetics of schizophrenia is complicated and the factors are known to aid in the influence of brain function and increasing the risk of other environmental factors (Gejman et al., 2010). The genes that are responsible for exposing the individual to other causations are considered, and the main ones are those that affect brain functions.
The article is helpful and supports the textbook information. It indeed goes deeper to shed more light on the development of schizophrenia through the description of the functionality of the brain. The accuracy of the article is high in showing the symptoms of the disorder, and thus it can be used to educate people on schizophrenia. It is successful in proving that heredity is a critical feature in the etiology of the disorder and that there can be more than one mentally ill individual in the family.
References
Chien, W. T., Leung, S. F., Yeung, F. K., & Wong, W. K. (2013). Current approaches to treatments for schizophrenia spectrum disorders, part II: psychosocial interventions and patient-focused perspectives in psychiatric care. Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment, 9, 1463.
Gejman, P. V., Sanders, A. R., & Duan, J. (2010). The role of genetics in the etiology of schizophrenia. Psychiatric Clinics, 33(1), 35-66.
Kane, J. M., & Correll, C. U. (2010). Pharmacologic treatment of schizophrenia. Dialogues in clinical neuroscience, 12(3), 345.
Mukherjee, S. (2016). Runs in the family: New findings about schizophrenia rekindle old questions about genes and identity. The New Yorker, 92(7), 26.
Van Winkel, R., Stefanis, N. C., & Myin-Germeys, I. (2008). Psychosocial stress and psychosis. A review of the neurobiological mechanisms and the evidence for gene-stress interaction. Schizophrenia bulletin, 34(6), 1095-1105.
