Question: Is there a possibility that schizophrenia can be cured or make people less affected by it?

Ok, so lets start with what we know about schizophrenia. Scientists think that schizophrenia is caused by a persons genes but also the environment they grow up in. We know that in identical twins, if one twin has schizophrenia, the other twin is more than twice as likely to have schizophrenia too. They have identical genes so this tells us that genes are important. BUT….. the other twin won’t always develop schizophrenia so there’s something else we’re missing: the environment they grow up in! Some factors that scientists have found that increase the likelihood of developing schizophrenia are: stress, smoking cannabis (or pot), being born in winter, having an older father, the mother having an infection while the baby is in the womb and living in the city. We still can’t find one gene or even one environment that can cause schizophrenia so we are looking at modelling these genes and environments in mice and watching what happens. People with schizophrenia have hallucinations (where they see or hear things that don’t exist), memory and attention problems, and are agitated and often can’t work, keep relationships or living in society. The drugs that are currently available for people with schizophrenia don’t work very well and sometimes make them sick in other ways, like gaining weight or feeling tired. We need to understand more about schizophrenia, how is its caused and what brain changes occur so we can develop better drugs.

I use mice that have schizophrenia-like genes and look for problems with memory, attention and if my mice are hyperactive, all symptoms of schizophrenia. I can sometimes see an improvement when I give my mice drugs that work in people who have schizophrenia, or when I raise them in stimulating and enriched environments with toys, ladders, ropes and running wheels. I hope I can find out what is happening in their brains so we can understand more about schizophrenia in people. Its an awful mental illness to have and I’d very much like to help.