Science Careers

Schizophrenia’s Specificity to Humans

Author:  Hriday Bhambhvani

Obsessive dogs, anxious frogs, and depressed hogs – you name it; the list goes on and on. We’ve all heard of animals, particularly some of our closer canine and feline friends, that suffer from psychiatric illnesses. In fact, animals develop the entire gamut of mental disorders, save for one: schizophrenia. According to current literature, psychosis has yet to reported outside of a human substrate. In contrast, obsession, anxiety, and depression have been described in many non-human species.