Schizophrenia Explanations Flashcards
Features
- mainly adolescent disorder
- 1 in every 100 people have schizophrenia in UK
- 1/4 have without breaks
- 50% with periods of recovery and symptoms
- equal in both sexes but males diagnosed more often
Symptoms
- Hallucinations - mainly hearing or seeing something that is not there e.g voices
- Delusions - false beliefs, thoughts being controlled and trying to be mislead (paranoid delusions) delusions of grandeur
- Thought disorder - loss of concentration, hard to follow, disorganised
- Thought insertion - thinks their thoughts are put there by someone else
- Thought broadcasting - thinking others can hear their thoughts
- Positive - changes in behaviour or thinking (as above)
- Negative - withdraw from others, lack of energy, social withdrawal, flatness of emotion, not caring about appearance
- Paranoid - suspicious of others, delusions of grandeur, hallucinations
- Disorganised - disorganised thoughts, inappropriate moods, no hallucinations
- Catatonic - withdrawn and isolated with little movement
- Residual - low level positive symptoms with psychotic symptoms
- Undifferentiated - don’t fit any of the other types
Dopamine hypothesis
- Caused by excessive dopamine activity
- Abnormal functioning of DA dependent brains result in symptoms
- D2 receptors - overreact to presence of the neurotransmitter
- Negative symptoms e.g metacortical pathways (motivation to repeat behaviour)
Evaluation (DA hypothesis)
E - amphetamines cause excess DA resulting in symptoms- rise in dopamine causes schiz
- animal research - Rundrup and Munkvard and amphetamines on animals
- PET scans - Lindstroem (L-Dopa taken up quicker in schiz patients)
- practical issues, objective, reductionist
A - chemotherapy
- chicken and the egg situation - suggest nature not nurture - not appropriate for all
Alt - nurture - urban areas (Castle)
Genetic explanation
- Strong heritable factors for development
- 2-6% increase for development with 2nd degree relative
- 6-17% increase with first degree relative
Evaluation (genetic)
E - Gottesman - MZ twins are both likely to have schiz (42% concordance)
- concordance not 100% so potential environmental factors
- Heston - 94 participant - suggested that if 1 parent had schiz 10% chance of having schiz - 10% did
- genetic markers - NPAS3
A - more informed about genetic causation
- removes responsibility away
S+S - highly reductionist
- need environmental trigger
- ethical implications - labelling of family members & SFP
Alt - environmental
Non biological
- Urban living - higher incidence of schiz in urban areas then in rural, studies in Chicago, Stockholm and London found above average incidences of schiz
- Social causation - living in an urban area may be a cause of schiz itself - characteristics linked w/ urban living: social dep, unemployment, high pop density, poor housing and low social status may cause high psychological stress
- Social drift theory - higher rates in cities may be from migration, people with schiz may be drifting into inner cities w/ single cheap accommodation, low paid work & fewer social demands
- Mentally healthy move away - urban area living not a cause but a consequence
- Stress diathesis model - Mental disorders like schiz involves both genetic predisposition but need environmental trigger which causes the symptoms
Evaluation (non-bio)
E - support social causation - castle who found most schiz had been born in urban areas and not drifted to following disorder onset
- Support diathesis - Torrey found that flu in 5th month of prenatal dev leads to brain changes - living in urban areas leads to higher chances of getting flu, explains why schiz higher in urban area
- Nature not nurture - Gottesman
A - social regeneration
- Care in the community to cope
S+S - reductionist - environment
- schizophrenia different in each person and how it develops
- Supported by scientific evidence
Alt - genetic/neurochemical explanation
