Biological explanations for Schizophrenia
- Created by: Thunder1107
- Created on: 08-11-17 16:21
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- Biological explinations
- Dopamine Hypothesis
- Increase dopamine
- It works by flooding the synapse and is temporary
- Amphetamine is an agonist
- A Parkinson's drug called L-Dopa increases D and can lead to sz symptoms
- Decrease dopamine
- These are anti-psychotic drugs and are antagonists
- They work by blocking D receptors in the brain and reduce + symptoms
- Revised D hypothesis
- + from excess in mesolimbic pathway and - from deficit in PFC
- Rat study - D depletion in PFC of rats and resulted in cognitive impairment and was reversed by atypical
- PET scans - found lower levels of D in PFC of sz's
- The D hypothesis states that an excess of D leads to + symptoms
- Eval
- Evidence from drug therapy success as they reduce D
- Challenges - anti-psychotics don't alleviate symptoms in 1/3 of Ps. In some D levels are normal
- Inconclusive evidence - amphetamine and cocaine affect other neurotransmitters
- Increase dopamine
- Genetics
- Twin Studies
- MZ share 100% DNA DZ share 50% DNA
- Joseph - MZ = 40.4% and DZ = 7.4%
- This suggests that bio is a part of sz
- Family studies
- Gottesman - schizo is more common amongst bio relatives with sz
- 2 sz parents=46% 1 sz parent= 13% siblings=9%
- The closer the degree of genetics the greater the risk
- Adoption studies
- Tienari studied 164 Finnish adoptees whose bio mothers had sz
- 6.7% were diagnosed sz compared to 2% of control group
- This suggests that there is a genetic vulnerability to sz
- Eval
- Adoptees may be selectively placed with families with experience of sz
- MZ twins are treated more similarly and have similar environments
- The family similarities may be due to parenting patterns not just genes
- Twin Studies
- Dopamine Hypothesis
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