schizophrenia -biological explanation of SZ (neural)

Question 1

what is meant by neural correlates?

Answer 1

.brain scans show structural and functioning abnormalities in different brain areas are linked with symptoms of SZ, e.g enlarged ventricles found in 80% of SZ patients showing loss of brain tissue (Johnstone)

Question 2

what is the dopamine hypothesis?

Answer 2

.dopamine believed to be involved in SZ as it features in brain systems related to symptoms of SZ.

Question 3

what are the 2 types of dopamine hypothesis?

Answer 3

. Hyperdopaminergia
Hypodopaminergia: Low dopamine activity – associated with prefrontal cortex and disorders of thought (e.g. delusions).

Question 4

what is hyperdopaminergia?

Answer 4

.high dopamine activity in the subcortex
.hallucinations + speech poverty

Question 5

what is hypodopaminergia?

Answer 5

.low dopamine activity in the prefrontal cortex
.related to negative symptoms (avolition)

Question 6

what is a dopamine agonist?

Answer 6

.these increase the levels of dopamine and make symptoms worse ie: amphetamines (Curran et al 2014)

Question 7

what is a dopamine antagonist?

Answer 7

.these reduce dopamine activity ie: antipsychotics and eliminate hallucinations and delusions (thornley et al)

Question 8

what is a strength to the neural explanation of SZ?

Answer 8

.ripke et al found 108 genes that relate to SZ and many code for dopamine HOWEVER some also code for a neurotransmitter called glutamate

Question 9

what are the negatives to the neural explanation of SZ?

Answer 9

.correlation doesn’t mean causation -different activity levels in the brain could result from SZ rather than cause it
.reductionist -attempts to explain SZ at the level of genes and chemicals, it ignores/ underplays the role of experience