Good Example Of Article Review On Schizophrenia

The article titled “What You Need to Know about Schizophrenia” written by Lisa Esposito and published in September 2014 gives an account of the symptoms, causes, diagnosis and medication of schizophrenia. According to the article, schizophrenia is one of the severe brain disorders, which affects over 2.4 million individuals in the United States . The disorder impairs the ability of individuals to manage their life and coexist in the society. The author gives an account of both positive as well as negative symptoms of schizophrenia. While the positive symptoms include delusions and hallucinations, negative symptoms include monotone speech, lack of hygiene, withdrawal from the society and isolation from the family as well as friends . Schizophrenia also leads to issues concerned with memory, concentration, decision making and alertness. The author mentions about the suicidal tendencies in individuals suffering from schizophrenia.
The article states that schizophrenia is a group of eight disorders with the same symptoms and genetic basis. While genes are the major cause of schizophrenia, the interaction of environment with genes contributes to about 40 percent of the risk of occurrence of the disorder. The author states that medication is an important factor in the treatment of schizophrenia as it returns the people to normal state. While multiple drugs cause side effects, such as weight gain and involuntary movements, cognitive therapy in addition to rehabilitative and psychological treatments enable the patients to return to their normal state . Thus, the article is interesting as it features basic information about the prevalence of schizophrenia, in addition to the symptoms, causes and recommended treatment. Written in simple vocabulary, the article helps to understand the state of individuals suffering from schizophrenia and the frequency of the disorder in the populations.
The second article titled “Schizophrenia: Impaired activity of the selective dopamine neurons” gives detailed information about the underlying mechanisms responsible for the negative symptoms of schizophrenia. Adopted from the Goethe University of Germany and published in the journal Science Daily, the article states that the previous researches were unable to determine that the negative symptoms of schizophrenia were due to the selective dopamine population . Dopamine mid-brain population is crucial for the cognitive and emotional processing in individuals. Moreover, the long term prognosis of schizophrenia depends on the severity of the symptoms. The article also describes that the average life span of individuals suffering from schizophrenia reduces by 25 years. According to Prof. Roeper, it is important to understand the neurobiological features of the negative symptoms of schizophrenia in order to formulate new therapies.
On the basis of research done on mice, researchers were able to succeed in understanding the neurological impairments in the dopamine system of the brain. They were also able to determine the impairment of memory with respect to the neurochemical changes in the dopamine system present in the prefrontal cortex . The article also states that dopamine neurons involved in motor control had no effect. The article gives an explanation of the persistence of patterns of dopamine neurons in spite of switching off the causal transgene in adult mice. The research mentioned in the article is vital as it emphasizes the presence of early developmental phase with respect to cognitive deficits in individuals suffering from schizophrenia . The researchers believe that further research helps to understand the changes in dopamine neurons while performing memory tasks. Finally, the article concludes by stating that the changes in neuronal activity of dopamine neurons are important for schizophrenia.

References

Esposito, L. (2014, 09 25). What You Need to Know About Schizophrenia. Retrieved 03 24, 2015, from US News: http://health.usnews.com/health-news/patient-advice/articles/2014/09/25/what-you-need-to-know-about-schizophrenia
Krabbe, S., Duda, J., Schiemann, J., Poetschke, C., Schneider, G., Kandel, E. R., et al. (2015, 02 17). Schizophrenia: Impaired activity of the selective dopamine neurons. Retrieved 03 24, 2015, from ScienceDaily: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150217083751.htm