geri who is schizophrenic course hero

What is the most controversial aspect of schizophrenia?

most controversial aspect of schizophrenia is whether thefew biological and many phenomenologic abnormalities re-ported are consistent with a degenerative, progressively dete-riorating course of the illness (154–158) or a static coursefor accounted by an early (developmental) insult (1,159–161). The neurodevelomental models suggest that aperinatal neuronal insult disrupts normal neural maturationand results in disruption of neuronal circuits and thus ab-normal neuronal function. It is further postulated that theclinical manifestation of symptoms is triggered by interac-tion between the initial defect with neuronal maturationprocesses such as neuronal migration, glial proliferation, andsynaptic pruning. This maturation process, in turn, ac-counts for the gap between the hypothesized early-life insultand later clinical manifestation.

Is schizophrenia a chronic disease?

From the time schizophrenia was defined, it has been viewedas a chronic, lifelong disease. Yet its specific manifestationsalong the life cycle have been poorly described, mostly be-cause of inherent methodologic difficulties. Improved medi-cal record keeping and the realization that understandingthe course of illness is essential to the understanding thepathophysiology of the illness have been behind the modernlong-term follow-up studies. Determining, for example, theearliest manifestations of the illness or the trigger and thelength of the window of deterioration has implications forpreventive and palliative treatment. Even if otherwise possi-ble, the identification of clinical correlates of progressivecortical atrophy by computed tomography, magnetic reso-nance imaging, or the biological meaning of spectroscopicabnormalities in synaptic connectivity requires detailed de-scription of the illness course. As more research is focusedon these issues, important information about the nature ofschizophrenia itself will result.