Question: what causes Schizophrenia and how can it be cured?

Mae Woods answered on 13 Jun 2012:

Schizophrenia is a mental illness that leads to either hallucinations (seeing things that are not there) or delusions (believing that something is true when it clearly is not true) or both. Very little is known about how a person gets schizophrenia as you do not show symptoms until early adulthood. Some scientists have been working on finding genes that cause schizophrenia.

It is difficult to find a single gene that causes the illness because the brain is very complicated and levels of different chemicals (for example dopamine) can effect the way we think and act. Basically if there is a lot going on it is difficult to control it with one gene.

Other scientists have been looking at the effect of drugs such as marijuana or benzoylmethylecgonine as a cause. However if somebody already has schizophrenia and takes these drugs their symptoms will become worse making it look like the cause when it may not be.

Schizophrenia can be cured with pills (for example Clozapine) and these pills generally control the levels of chemicals in the brain. Counseling is also often used in helping a person with a chronic (long term) illness. Research into how to treat the illness might involve looking at the difference between how people with and without the illness solve a simple puzzle.