Schizophrenia

There are billions of nerve cells in the brain. Each nerve cell has branches that transmit and receive messages from other nerve cells. The branches release chemicals, called neurotransmitters, which carry the messages from the end of one nerve branch to the cell body of another. In the brain afflicted with schizophrenia, something goes wrong in this communication system. Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe, and disabling brain disease. Although schizophrenia affects men and women with equal frequency, the disorder often appears earlier in men, usually in the late teens or early twenties.

Connected with the loss of memory, there is a form of insanity which occurs in young persons….The attack is almost imperceptible…. The sensibility appears to be considerably blunted…They do not bear the same affection towards their parents and relations…As their apathy increases they are negligent of their dress, and inattentive to personal cleanliness. Thus in the interval between puberty and manhood, I have painfully witnessed this hopeless and degrading change, which in a short time has transformed the most promising and vigorous intellect into a slavering and bloated ideot. -John Haslam, 1809