The Soloist

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has launched a new Web site, http://www.nami.org/soloist, as part of a social action campaign with Participant Media surrounding the release (April 24) of "The Soloist," starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey, Jr.

Schizophrenia is a serious and challenging medical illness, an illness that affects well over 2 million American adults, which is about 1 percent of the population age 18 and older.

Although it is often feared and misunderstood, schizophrenia is a treatable medical condition.

Scientists still do not know the specific causes of schizophrenia, but research has shown that the brains of people with schizophrenia are different from the brains of people without the illness.

Like many other medical illnesses such as cancer or diabetes, schizophrenia seems to be caused by a combination of problems including genetic vulnerability and environmental factors that occur during a person's development.
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