Schizophrenia displayed in A Beautiful Mind essays

Schizophrenia displayed in A Beautiful Mind essays I chose the movie A Beautiful Mind starring Russell Crowe. A Beautiful Mind is based on the life of John Forbes Nash Jr., who was a mathematical genius who made a great discovery while attending Princeton. Nash is then sidetracked by many problems, but fights back and eventually prevails in the end. The movie leads the viewer on to believe that Nashs visions are real. Later we discover that Nash is diagnosed as a schizophrenic or paranoid schizophrenic. Schizophrenia is explained in the textbook on pages 491-498. The textbook defines schizophrenia as a psychotic disorder in which the patients affect, behavior, and thoughts are profoundly altered. There are usually two groups of schizophrenia, positive and negative symptoms. Positive symptoms include an excess or distortion of normal functions, such as a hallucination. They include delusions of grandeur, persecution, reference, and control. The other type, negative is a diminution or loss of normal functions such as a restriction in speech. There are also four types of schizophrenia which are paranoid, disorganized, catatonic, and undifferentiated. According to the textbook, schizophrenia occurs in about 1 in 100 people worldwide. The cause of schizophrenia is due to a number of contributing factors. Genetics is one factor in the development of schizophrenia. Another factor is abnormalities in the brain. People with schizophrenia tend to have enlarged ventricles, which le aves less space for other parts of the brain. It cuts down on the size of the frontal cortex, which plays a huge role in abstract thinking and planning. Causes of abnormalities in the brain can happen during fetal development. Complications could be maternal malnourishment during pregnancy, maternal illness, or improper prenatal care. In a study on a group of Finnish people with schizophrenia, researchers discovered that children that developed schizophrenia did not do worse academica...