Introduction
Stress plays quite a great role in a wide range of disease condition. Stress has been associated with a number of psychiatric problems such as alcoholism, major depression, and psychosis among others. Schizophrenia, a disease associated with memory impairment and loss of emotions, has long been suspected to be associated with stress as well. Latest medical research has proven that stress, at least, worsens the condition or the symptoms of the disease condition. Patients with schizophrenia have quite a great challenge in managing stress. In turn, increased stress further causes or worsens the symptoms. Researchers have identified a connection between stress, levels of cortisol, damage of a part of the brain and memory to play a role in schizophrenia. Such a relationship is also observed in other mental diseases such as post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. Most of the schizophrenia patients do not fully recover from the disease condition. Managing stress may be a breakthrough in treating the disorder. This essay will provide an overview of schizophrenia and also try to illustrate the role of stress in schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia Overview
Research has confirmed that Schizophrenia is not a specific mental disorder but rather, a group of related mental disorders. These disorders are characterized by symptoms such as hallucinations, delusion, lack of emotions and motivation and cognitive impairments (van Dongen et al., 2016). People who have schizophrenia are often quiet and do not make eye contact with others. Such individuals speak very little. There is no particularly known cause of the disorder, but studies suggest that environmental factors or genetic abnormalities may be the cause of schizophrenia. No specific genes have yet been linked with the disorder. Problems during delivery, exposure of the fetus to infection while in the uterus, brain injury and adversity during childhood are some of the environmental factors that are believed to cause schizophrenia. It is important to understand and be aware of these possible causes of schizophrenia as the knowledge is key to preventing and treating the disease.
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Symptoms of the disease usually start appearing between the ages of fifteen and thirty. Rare cases of children having the disease have also been reported. The disease affects the way individuals think, feel, and how they behave. The common characteristic of individuals with the disease is the loss of touch with the reality. Individuals with schizophrenia are unable to carry out the regular tasks such the daily house chores. Various treatments are available for the disease. However, similar therapies do not appear to work for all patients with symptoms of schizophrenia. While some patients recover fully and are able to work and have families, a larger number of the patients suffer from the symptoms throughout their lives. This could be due to the fact that schizophrenia is not a single disorder but a group of mental disorders. Stress has also been associated with such irregularities in the treatment of the disorder.
Effects of Stress on the Brain
Research has shown that stress plays a significant role in mental illnesses by worsening the course of the disease. In schizophrenia, for instance, stress increases the production of the hormone, cortisol, by the body, which then damages an area of the brain known as the hippocampus. Cortisol damage and destroy a lot of nerve cells in the region of the hippocampus of the brain (Ho et al., 2016). This area of the brain controls memory. Studies undertaken show that this stress cascade occurs in patients with schizophrenia. Consequently, further research confirms that patients with the disorder tend to have smaller hippocampal volumes as compared to people without the mental disorder. Individuals who suffer from the disease have been found to suffer from problems associated with the malfunction of the hippocampus such as memory loss and the ability to perform various common tasks. This evidence backs up the theory that stress initiates the overall damage of the hippocampus leading to loss of memory and other symptoms experienced by patients with schizophrenia.
The Relationship between Stress, Cortisol, Hippocampus, and Memory
The connection between stress, cortisol levels, damage to the hippocampus and memory is also observed in a number of other mental disorders such post-traumatic stress disorder and depression (Clarke et al., 2015). The action of stress is similar in these other diseases. Research on war Veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder also confirms a similar phenomenon in the brain. The hippocampal volume of these veterans is also smaller than that of healthy individuals. The size of the hippocampus determines how veteran perform on standard memory tests. People who suffered from childhood challenges such as abuse also impaired memory and smaller hippocampi. The same feature and characteristics are observed in depression. Cortisol levels also increase as one grows older and consequently, the hippocampus also become much smaller with age. As a result, healthy older people may have memory impairment. This confirms why older people tend to have memory impairments and instances of memory loss.
Stress, therefore, plays quite a significant role in schizophrenia. Studies suggest that patients who do not recover from schizophrenia have problems managing stress. While stress is not the primary cause of schizophrenia, it stirs up or worsens the symptoms of the disease. Because schizophrenia is a group of different mental disorders the role or effect of stress may be higher is some case of the disease than in others. High levels of stress cause the brain to release the hormone, cortisol, and a flight hormone (Pruessner et al., 2017). High levels of cortisol destroy nerve cell in the brain, particularly in the hippocampal region. The destruction of most of the nerve cells in this region leads to a malfunction making the individual's mental state to worsen. Patients with schizophrenia are highly affected by stress. A small event or change in the environment or the surrounding of a patient who has schizophrenia may trigger severe psychotic episodes leading to hospitalization.
Stress Management in Treating Schizophrenia
As mentioned above, most of the patients who receive treatments for schizophrenia end up having lifelong suffering due to the symptoms of the disease. Stress could be the factor for the unrelenting suffering due to the symptoms of the disease. Therefore, the solution may exist in reducing and managing stress. When stress is properly managed such that an individual maintains peace of mind at all times, there will be no excessive release of cortisol in the brain. The hippocampus will, therefore, be able to function properly with its nerve cells in good shape. Studies have also indicated that damaged cells within the hippocampus can regenerate after the level of cortisol has been reduced. Stress management is thus key to managing and treating schizophrenia.
Conclusion
Stress has been suspected to play a part in schizophrenia for a long time. Stress could be the main reason why some patients do not fully recover even after receiving treatment. The above illustrations show that stress, just like in other mental disorders, could be playing a significant role in increasing the symptoms of the disease. Stress increases the production of cortisol to a level which causes the destruction of nerve cells in the part of the brain which controls memory. The increased damage of the hippocampal nerve cells, as illustrated, reduces its size, which leads to more severe symptoms such as memory impairment and memory loss, which are characteristics of the disorder.
References
Clarke, M. C., Tanskanen, A., Huttunen, M. O., & Cannon, M. (2015). Epidemiological evidence for the role of prenatal stress in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Antioxidant & Signaling, 15(7), 2067-2079.
Ho, R. T., Fong, T. C., Wan, A. H., Au-Yeung, F. S., Chen, E. Y., & Spiegel, D. (2016). Associations between diurnal cortisol patterns and lifestyle factors, psychotic symptoms, and neurological deficits: A longitudinal study on patients with chronic schizophrenia. Journal of psychiatric research , 81 , 16-22.
Pruessner, M., Cullen, A. E., Aas, M., & Walker, E. F. (2017). The neural diathesis-stress model of schizophrenia revisited: an update on recent findings considering illness stage and neurobiological and methodological complexities. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews , 73 , 191-218.
Van Dongen, J. D., Buck, N. M., & van Marle, H. J. (2016). Positive symptoms, substance use, and psychopathic traits as predictors of aggression in persons with a schizophrenia disorder. Psychiatry research , 237 , 109-113.
