Scientists have proposed that prenatal stress results in the release of hormones that disturb fetal neurodevelopment; stress can activate the mother’s dopamine system, and that may dysregulate the fetus’s. Postnatal events such as a head trauma in early childhood increase the risk of developing schizophrenia. Lifetime stress plays a role, too; the risk is particularly high among immigrants who go from underdeveloped settings to cities—people confronting exponential unfamiliarity. The most consistent postuterine environmental factor associated with a worsening of psychotic symptoms is the abuse
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