The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Social, psychological support needed to check schizophrenia, says expert

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Sep 14, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Social, psychological support needed to check schizophrenia, says expert

Special Correspondent

“Psychological factors are important for understanding the ramifications of the disease”

— Photo: S.R. Raghunathan

VALUaBLE RECOGNITION: C.V. Karthik Narayanan, chairman, Union Company Motors, presenting the K. Gopalakrishna Endowment Oration Award to Eileen M. Joyce, Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, London, in Chennai on Saturday. Krishnamoorthy Srinivas, chairman, K. Gopalakrishna Department of Neurology, is in the picture.

CHENNAI: While schizophrenia is essentially a brain disorder, psychological factors involving the “mind” remain important for understanding all of its ramifications, Eileen M. Joyce, professor and Raymond Way Chair in Neuropsychiatry at the Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, London, said on Saturday.

Tracing the history of the scientific theories about schizophrenia, Professor Joyce said that in the first half of the last century, schizophrenia was regarded essentially as a psychological disorder. In 1963, the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia was articulated: researchers sought to understand the symptoms in terms of dopamine transmission in the brain. While this began to decline in the 1990s, another lead positioning the abnormal structure of the brain as the cause began to gain currency.

CT scan images of the brain of patients with schizophrenia showed that the brain had shrunk and fluid content had increased. “There was evidence for brain shrinking and impaired cognitive function,” Professor Joyce said, delivering the 22nd K. Gopalakrishna Endowment Oration sponsored by the Chatnath Trust and the K. Gopalakrishna Department of Neurology, Institute of Neurological Sciences, Voluntary Health Services, on ‘Schizophrenia—Splitting the brain from the mind.’ In the 1990s, a set of studies began to look for abnormalities in the brain structure and function at the beginning of the disorder. Brain structural changes were observed in the white matter and grey matter; cognitive impairment was noticed as also neurotransmitter dysfunction.

In addition to the genetic structure of the brain, situations that a person came across at vulnerable periods also increased his risk, she said. While infections and malnutrition in the foetal period, a history of complications and hypoxia at birth were risk factors, cannabis smoking, it was proved, could bring ahead the onset of psychosis by at least two years if there was any genetic vulnerability.

Professor Joyce also stressed the need to examine ‘urbanicity’ as a cause. Being brought up in an urban environment increased the risk of schizophrenia, obviously rooted in family and social networks and support structures. The lack of support might be stressful and precipitate psychosis. She also concluded that the most effective treatment was early intervention: look at ‘urbanicity’ and provide for social and psychological support structures to people.

C.V. Karthik Narayanan, chairman, Union Company Motors, honoured Professor Joyce.

Krishnamoorthy Srinivas, chairman, K. Gopalakrishna Department of Neurology, and N.S. Murali, secretary, Voluntary Health Services, spoke.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu