Explanations

Question 1

Outline biological factors involved in schizophrenia - candidate genes

Answer 1

polygentic and aetiologically heterogenous - each individual gene confer small risk
- Ripke: 37,000 patients 108 different variations associated with risk - many coded for dopamine neurotransmitter

Question 2

Outline biological factors involved in schizophrenia - genetic factors

Answer 2

strong relationship between likeliness of scz and genetic similarity of family members

• Gottesman: MZ = 48% DZ = 17%
• Shields: around 50% MZ

Question 3

Outline biological factors involved in schizophrenia - Dopamine hypothesis

Answer 3

Neurotransmitters do not function normally

• Hyperdoperminergia in subcortex = hallucinations and speech poverty
• Hypodoperminergia in prefrontal cortex (decision making)

Question 4

Outline biological factors involved in schizophrenia - neural correlates

Answer 4

• avoilition & ventral striatum - Jeckel: low levels of activity compared to control
• auditory hallucinations & low activity in superior temporal gyrus & anterior cingulate gyrus - Allen et al

Question 5

Evaluate biological factors involved in schizophrenia

Answer 5

• no study found MZ 100% concordance, need to consider other factors e.g. psychological
• Tienari adoption study: those who adopted and have no history of scz still get it
• dopamine hypothesis incomplete - ignore other neurotransmitters e.g. glutamate, serotonin
• correlational (neural correlates) tells us little

Question 6

What is a schizophrenogenic mother?

Answer 6

Fromm-Reichmann: mother is cold, rejecting, controlling and there is a family climate of tension and secrecy, distrust may result in paranoid delusions

Question 7

What is double bind?

Answer 7

Bateson: family communication and contradictory messages - feelings of unfairness cannot be expressed, when gets it wrong, withdrawal of love and learn world is a confusing place = disorganised thinking and delusions

Question 8

What is expressed emotion?

Answer 8

level of emotion, in particular negative emotion, expressed towards a patient by their carer - elements: verbal criticism, hostility, emotional over involvement and self sacrifice

Question 9

What are Frith’s cognitive explanations? - meta representation

Answer 9

meta representation - hallucinations as dysfunction disrupts ability to understand thoughts as own (+ delusions)

Question 10

What are Frith’s cognitive explanations? - central control

Answer 10

central control - speech poverty, derailment of thoughts/spoken sentences as each word triggers automatic associations they cannot express

Question 11

AO3 family dysfunction

Answer 11

Read et al: 46 studies of child abuse and scz and 69% women in-patients had history of sexual, physical abuse or both

• issue with emphasis on childhood and retrospective data may not be valid
• results inconsistent and
• only correlational
• overlook biological factors
• blames parents

Question 12

AO3 cognitive explanations

Answer 12

unclear whether causal or results of neural correlates / abnormal neurotransmitter levels - question validity of approach
strong evidence: Stirling et al: 30 patients vs 18 controls, stroop test - patients took twice as long to say the colour of ink
- only explain proximal causes not distal ones