Adopted Children & Schizophrenia

During this week's reading about schizophrenia, the text covered many concepts such as the disorder and the actual diagnosis of schizophrenia, demographic data, and prenatal environmental factors. The section I was most interested in was about the children who are adopted and still develop schizophrenia. It is logical that such a severe and complex mental disorder should have some genetic factors that contribute in being diagnosed with this illness yet researchers still have not found which gene it is to balme. My concern was what if a child is adopted and grew up with warm, loving parents and had lots of friends, in a good home, but still was later diagnosed with this disorder? It makes a little sense that maybe the environment the child grew up in may contribute to decreasing the chances of being diagnosed with schizophrenia. But according to the table in section 15.2, Figure 15.11, it clearly shows that children with schizophrenic mothers who are adopted into nonschizophrenic families still have the same chance as dizygotic twins raised in the same environment to be diagnosed with this mental disorder. I think the nature versus nurture debate may come into play with a situation like this one. Environment may play some role, but an unknown gene has the authority with this complex disorder. I was very intrigued with this information that I needed to know more about it and how is it that a healthy nonschizophrenic environment for adopted children still has no avoidance from this illness. I found an article explaining my questions and more. This in depth article about Schizophrenia explaining several researches about twins, influences from environment, and even shows tables depicting the information found from different studies.

Depression..My Story.

Depression. What causes someone to experience such sadness, helplessness, and unhappiness for periods at a time? Is there a genetic predisposition or does the environment play a role? And what are the treatments for such a mood disorder? So many questions can be asked about this disorder, but one who's experienced it can answer these questions and more.
I was excited to read more about this mood disorder because I can personally relate to this section. I don't want to make this sound like a sob story because it clearly isn't; it was a time in my life that I was not able to avoid and thankfully I was able to get the proper treatment and carry on with my life. This was all an experience in which I learned a lot about myself and I can gladly share my story of defeating this mood disorder.
As mentioned in the text, causes of depression vary from patient to patient. My cause was experiencing a traumatic event which led to the confusion of my sexuality. At the time of the event I had a boyfriend who stood by my side and defended me no matter what. It wasn't until after the event when I started to question myself about my sexuality. I had no idea what was going on with me and why I was having unusual thoughts and doubts about my personal life. I eventually became very depressed and remember thinking to myself that I was never going to be happy again or "normal" as I would call it. I was very sad and cried most days and had little energy to do anything. Weeks later I began to see a psychotherapist in hopes of getting my life back on track. It was my first year in college so I had no dependable friends or family around to lean on. I had spoken to my mom about what I was going through and asked her if she had ever been depressed. She admitted that she has been and that my grandmother also has a history of depression. That is when I knew there had to be a predisposition to this disorder I was experiencing. However, studies show that the environmental factors are bigger precursors to depression rather than genetics itself, which was also proven in my case as well.

Here is a short video in which Dr. Daniel Pine explains the difference between the genetic and the environmental factors that play a role in depression. He also explains, just as the text does, that there is not one gene that can take the blame for this mood disorder but research is being done on finding more ways to cure it.

My therapy lasted a short eight weeks, but during those weeks the psychotherapist performed different cognitive-behavioral techniques to help me conquer my disorder including rational emotive behavioral therapy (REBT). I am glad to say that I was not put on any antidepressants because I first wanted to try my best to see if I can overcome this depression I was going through. I must agree with the text that psychotherapy is the safest and longer lasting treatment than drugs and almost three years after this experience I am glad to say that my thoughts, emotions, and behaviors have changed to make me the person I am today.

I was interested in the electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) as a treatment for depression and was shocked to find that ECT indeed helped to alleviate depressed emotions. I found a video about a woman named Julie who was severely depressed and also had multiple suicide attempts and how no treatment or drugs worked for her, but ECT saved her life.

No amygdala, No fear

What if we had no fear? That we were not scared of anything or anyone. Sounds like an appealing trait to have, but in fact it can be very dangerous to be fearless. Some harmless situations where having no fear would be beneficial include being negatively judged by others, public speaking, and enclosed areas. However, if we had no fear and were in a robbery or in a life and death situation, that is when things can get a little confusing. Normally we would do all that we can to save ourselves and others, but for those people who have damage to their amygdala, show no fear in these types of situations.
I'm sure we all know the responsibilities of the almond shaped structure in our brains known as the amygdala. It's functions include emotional processing and responses, especially in fear and anxiety. If there is damage to the amygdala that person loses all emotional process and response to different stimuli. The amygdala also has an emotional storage or memory that helps us remember what we are afraid of and what makes us happy. So what happens if there is damage to the amygdala? Yes, that person will be fearless and will not remember what their own personal fears are. They will also have problems identifying fear in other people's facial expressions.
While reading the section on 'damage to the human amygdala' the text gave a famous example of a woman known as SM who was indeed fearless of everything. She has a genetic disorder known as Urbach-Wiethe disease which eventually wastes the amygdala with accumulating calcium. This disease has other symptoms and characteristics but we are focusing in on the neurological aspect of it.  Here is an article explaining SM's case of this disease and the various situations she was exposed to in testing her amount of fearlessness.