rm. This leaves small regions of the brain permanently out of place or miswired. These errors in the development of the brain’s architecture have not yet been discovered, but one theory is that these misconnections might develop when the mother catches a virus early in her pregnancy. Evidence to support this was found when 7 out of 20 schizophrenics were found to have misplaced neurons in the prefrontal area of the brain. Some of the neurons were oddly stacked and some were missing in this area. This is opposite of the 0 out of 20 normal people with misplaced neurons. These out of place cells are unexpectedly large residues of the neural subplate, a structure in the brain, which guides neurons to their proper place in the brain. What causes this failure is not yet know, but it could be anything from genetics to environment.The chemical dopamine is a neurotransmitter in the brain that is thought to have some effect on the symptoms that make up schizophrenia. These symptoms are thought to be result of an excess of dopamine in the brain. Serotonin is also a neurotransmitter in the brain that has just recently been found to have an effect of schizophrenics. Serotonin’s purpose in the brain is to act as a bridge between nerve cells of the brain so that they can communicate with each other. It’s current role in schizophrenia isn’t yet known, but there is evidence that there is an overabundance of it in the brain based on the fact that drugs with only dopamine blockers showed little or no effect of schizophrenics. Drugs with both dopamine and serotonin blockers have proven much more affective in the suppression and calming down of the symptoms of schizophrenia. In schizophrenics there are both Positive and Negative symptoms. Negative symptoms are those with more inward signs and Positive symptoms are those with more outward, or visible signs. Some of the negative symptoms are blunted emotions or blunted a...
