Schizophrenia: neurotransmitter explanation (Biological)

Question 1

What is a neurotransmitter that has been linked to schizophrenia

Answer 1

Dopamine

Question 2

Who came up with the dopamine hypothesis

Answer 2

Arvid Carlsson

Question 3

What is the Dopamine hypothesis

Answer 3

It suggested that schizophrenia is caused by too much dopamine, or too many dopamine receptors in key areas of the brain.

Question 4

What did Davis et al suggest caused positive schizophrenic symptoms?

Answer 4

Excess of dopaminergic activity in mesolimbic pathway

Question 5

What did Davis et al suggest caused negative schizophrenic symptoms?

Answer 5

Low levels of dopaminergic activity in the mesocortical pathway in the brain

Question 6

What drug lead researchers to belive that serotonin was also a key neurotransmitter in schizophrenia?

Answer 6

Clozapine

Question 7

Why did clozapine lead researchers to believe serotonin was also linked to schizophrenia?

Answer 7

Binds to serotonin receptors and it greatly reduced both positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia

Question 8

Because of this what was hypothosised of the cause of negative symptoms?

Answer 8

• irregular serotonin activity

Question 9

EVALUATION

Answer 9

evaluation

Question 10

A strength of the application of neurotransmitter explanation

Answer 10

Research in the role of nuerotransmitters have led to effective drug treatments.

Question 11

Evidence that shows this

Answer 11

dopamine antagonists that bind to D2 receptors reduce positive symptoms

• atypical drugs remove both positive and negative symptoms as they also bind to serotonin receptors

Question 12

what does this mean for schizophrenic patients

Answer 12

can live in communities like normal people as they can control their symptoms without residential care

Question 13

What is a weakness of this explanation?

Answer 13

It doesn’t explain why some groups in society, like second generation immigrants, are more likely to develop schizophrenia.

Question 14

Evidence of immigrants being more likely to develop schizophrenia

Answer 14

research in netherlands found that moroccan immigrants were more likely to have schizophrenia over turkish immigrants. This correlated with precieved levels of discrimination received by each group

Question 15

What does that evidence suggest

Answer 15

That environmental factors like social stress may also be a cause to the development of schizophrenia.

Question 16

What is a strength of evidence that supports the dopamine hypothesis

Answer 16

Lab experiment conducted by Tenn et al on rats treated with amphetamine showed rats developing psychotic like symptoms

Question 17

What happened in Tenn et al’s rat amphetamine experiment

Answer 17

rats given 9 amphetamine injections over 3 weeks so schizophrenia like symptoms started to appear. Rats then treated with dopamine antogonists

Question 18

Results of Tenn et al

Answer 18

Dopamine antagonists had a positive result in reversing the schizophrenic like symptoms

Question 19

what does this evidence suggest?

Answer 19

Increased sopamine levels may be a cause of schizophrenia in humans.