Consequences of intelligence Only in humans can schizophrenia develop

Complex brain: people can become schizophrenic - not animals
To date, the causes of the development of schizophrenia are largely unclear. It is known that only humans can become schizophrenic, but not animals. Researchers have now discovered why this is so.

Causes of schizophrenia largely unclear
Around one percent of the population develops schizophrenia over the course of life. The causes for the development of schizophrenia are still largely unclear. Recently, scientists have discovered certain gene modifications as a schizophrenia risk factor. Patients who suffer from this serious mental illness have a two to three times higher mortality rate than those without such a diagnosis. Causes of death are often cardiovascular disease, as noted in a study last year. In schizophrenic people, perception, thinking and feeling change as well as the inner drive and the way to move. In many cases so strong that friends or relatives think they have another person in front of them.

The price of our intelligence: schizophrenia. Image: read design-fotolia

Animals can not become schizophrenic
As reported by Die Welt online, schizophrenia has an exceptional position: the serious illness is reserved for humans. Other mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorder can also get animals. For example, dogs may be over-anxious, monkeys depressed, and animals kept in captivity often develop obsessive-compulsive disorder. Schizophrenia, on the other hand, has never been observed in the animal kingdom. Why this is so, researchers have now around the geneticist Joel Dudley of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai found in New York. In the journal "Molecular Biology and Evolution", the scientists report that the highly specialized complex brain is responsible for the development of schizophrenia - and only in humans.

Shadow side of the complex brain
According to the data, Dudley's laboratory examined the so-called Human Accelerated Regions (HARs). These are short stretches of DNA that changed very rapidly and massively as the human ancestor began to genetically split off from the chimpanzee. Probably because this gave man evolutionary benefits. As "The World" writes, HARs were more than often in direct proximity to genes that contribute to schizophrenia. In addition, the genes were jointly responsible for the transmission of the messenger GABA from one nerve cell to the next. This transmission is disturbed in schizophrenia. The consequences of this can include hallucinations, delusions and bizarre thoughts. As it concludes, a schizophrenic brain is, so to speak, the dark side of the highly complex brain of man. While the HARs help - if all goes well - to make it superior to all other species, if anything goes wrong in the HAR control, everything in the brain that makes humans so intelligent is completely messed up. (Ad)