Schizophrenia explanations

Question 1

Family dysfunction - (Double bind theory)

Answer 1

Bateson suggested contradictory messages from parents for example when a mother tell their daughter they love them and then turn their head away in disgust, reduces the chance of a child to respond to the message and one message invalidates the other. Shown to prevent development of an internal coherent construction of reality which can manifest in schizophrenic symptoms.

Question 2

Family dysfunction - (Expressed emotions)

Answer 2

Negative emotional environments where there is a high degree of hostility and criticism towards the individuals. Relatives of the sufferer tend to talk more and listen less about the individual. A patient returning to a high EE family show 4 times more likely to show relapse rate. Suggests that schizophrenics have a low tolerance rate for intense environmental stimuli.

Question 3

Genetic factors - (family studies, briefly what would they suggest)

Answer 3

-Family studies have concluded that schizophrenia is more common along biological relatives of a person with schizophrenia.
-The closer the degree of genetic relatedness, the greater the risk.

Question 4

Family studies as a genetic explanation - (study)

Answer 4

Gottesman’s study, children with 2 schizophrenic parents had a concordance rate of 46%, children with one at 13% and siblings (with a brother or sister having schizophrenia) with a concordance rate of 9%.

The closer related you are to a family member with schizophrenia the more likely you are to have the genetic risk of being diagnosed with schizophrenia. Can be explored through Gottesmann’s large-scale family studies. Which explored % chance of schizophrenia from closely relatedness.
Auntie - 2%
Sibling - 9%
Identical twins - 48%
Family studies do share the same environments which may also explain % rates for example you may be much more likely to share the same environment with someone you live with compared with your Aunt who lives away from you. However, family studies do show the importance of genetic similarities in the development of schizophrenia.

Question 5

what does concordance rate mean?

Answer 5

The proportion of pairs of individuals that share a particular attribute, given that one of the individuals has that characteristic. (similarity)

Question 6

Twin studies as a genetic explanation(study) -

Answer 6

Joseph calculated that pooled data for all schizophrenias twin studies carried out to prior to 2001 which showed a concordance rate for MZ twins of 40.4% and 7.4% of DZ twins.

Question 7

Drugs increasing dopaminergic activity -

Answer 7

• Amphetamine is a dopamine agonist (causes synapses to be flooded with the neurotransmitter)
• High amphetamines (dopamine releasing drug) in normal individuals can develop the characteristic symptoms of a schizophrenic episode.

Question 8

The dopamine hypothesis -

Answer 8

-The hypothesis claims that an excess amount of dopamine in some regions in the brain is associated with positive symptoms of schizophrenia.
- Also believed to be high with D2 receptors (schizophrenics) on receiving neurons.
- This results in more dopamine firing and more being received.

Question 9

The revised hypothesis was devised was by who?

Answer 9

Davis and Kahn

Question 10

The revised dopamine hypothesis

Answer 10

Proposed that the positive symptoms of schizophrenia are caused by an excess of dopamine in sub cortical areas of the brain (mesolimbic).
Negative and cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia are thought to arise from a deficit of dopamine in areas of the prefrontal cortex. (Mespcortical pathway)

Question 11

The prefrontal cortex as an area involved in schizophrenia -

Answer 11

• Main area in executive control (planning, reasoning and judgement)
• Shown to be impaired on schizophrenic patients
• Hyopthesised that the cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia results from defects within the PFC, and its connections with other areas of the brain (hippocampus).

Question 12

Psychological explanations can refer to -

Answer 12

Family dysfunction:
- Double bind theory
- Expressed emotion

Cognitive explanations:
- Dysfunctional thought processing

Question 13

Cognitive explanations to schizophrenia -

Answer 13

The role of mental processes suggests it to do with lots of abnormal information processing where these can offer suggestions to schizophrenia as a whole schizophrenia is brought about by a disruption to normal thought processing which can be seen in a number of symptoms.

Question 14

Dysfunctional thought processing -

Answer 14

Frith identified two kinds of this cognitive explanation. Metarepresentation - cognitive ability to reflect on thoughts and behaviour allowing insight to our interactions and goals, disruption to this would reject our idea ability to recognise our own thoughts as being carried out by ourselves rather than someone else suggesting why we don’t understand when are why these symptoms occur or if they do occur.

Question 15

Dysfunctional thought processing causes -

Answer 15

Patients to over focus on small, irrelevant details and real life events and their dysfunctional reasoning makes their belief irrational causing a delusion belief.

Question 16

According to cognitive explanations -

Answer 16

According to the cognitive explanation, dysfunctional thought processing leads to symptoms of schizophrenia by facilitating the development of delusions and memory and perception issues.

Question 17

Dysfunctional attention causes them to focus on? (Hallucinations)

Answer 17

Pretty irrelevant things, due dysfunctional though processing people focus on things they imagine and over focusing on these imagined events can begin to make them feel real. People with schizophrenia tend to struggle to tell the difference between things they imagined and things that are real therefore causing the experience of hallucinations.

Question 18

These dysfunctional through processes lead to negative symptoms too because -

Answer 18

These symptoms are abnormal and are from experience in the real world. They then want to avoid these positive symptom experiences and therefore isolate themselves resulting in avolition and speech poverty.

Question 19

What is a relapse?

Answer 19

a relapse often means the reappearance of psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions, or severe disorganized thinking, which had previously been managed or reduced through treatment. High relapse rates can occur due to various factors, including non-adherence to medication, stressful life events, substance abuse, or inadequate support systems.