What can cause schizoaffective disorder?

Unknown: We do not have a clear understanding of the causes of most major mental disorders, but that may be especially true for schizoaffective disorder. It is a hybrid of symptoms from schizophrenia and depression or mania--and we don't really understand the underlying causes of those either.

Schizoaffective: The current thinking on this is an imbalance of neurotransmitters, which are chemicals that transmit messages from one nerve cell to the next, and the neurotransmitters are located in the synapses, in other words those tine spaces between each nerve cell. One of the main culprits is thought to be the neurotransmitter dopamine, but there are others.