Gender Differences in Schizophrenia

This section will explain some observed differences in male and female schizophrenics. There are two things I must define first. One is estrogen, a special hormone found in women. The other is dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter. Neurotransmitters are chemicals and compounds that pass messages between neurons in the brain. In schizophrenics high levels of dopamine are found and are believed to be part of the disorder (Kolb, 1998). Multiple studies have shown that gender plays an important part in schizophrenia.


Though gender does not affect your chances of being born with schizophrenia, it does affect the effects of the disease. Studies have shown that the disease is less severe in women. Researchers have found that women have fewer and lesser symptoms, and later onset. Some scientists believe that this is because women have estrogen. Research on the effects of estrogen shows that it reduces the effects of dopamine in the central nervous system. If men are given estrogen, their symptoms are decreased, but this is not an effective long-term solution, because it leads to feminization of the men (Mueser and McGurk, 2004).

Images from: http://www.schizophrenia.com/research/schiz.brain.htm]