Biological Explanations Of Schizophrenia Essay

Schizophrenia is classified as a long term mental disorder that causes both positive symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions, negative symptoms such as disorder also creates cognitive symptoms that may cause changes in memory, or issues with thinking. This essay will explore biological explanations of schizophrenia, such as the ‘dopamine hypothesis’, where an increase in dopamine in the brain can cause schizophrenic symptoms as suggested by Carlsson and Lindqvit (1963). After, inheritance of genes found amongst biological families will be discussed, as this has been found to be linked to schizophrenia, however, genetics combined with environmental factors may play a role. Along with this, social factors may play a part in the development of schizophrenia, such as family dysfunction, where parents may show conflicting and contradictory emotions towards a child, leading them to become confused, and showing negative symptoms. Lastly, sociocultural factors such as the ‘urban effect’, where it has been found that schizophrenia patients are more common in more built-up areas, as oppose to rural areas. The ‘dopamine hypothesis’ first proposed by Carlsson and Lindqvit emerged as a result of antipsychotic drugs such as cocaine, that increased the

In a review by Gottesman and Shields (1972), the pair looked at adopted and twin studies between 1967-1976, and found a concordance rate of 58% in identical twins, and 12% for non-identical twins. Therefore, due to the concordance rates not being 100%, similarly like the dopamine hypothesis, environmental factors such as rearing patterns will influence the development of schizophrenia. However, this explanation shows that the closer one is genetically similar to another family member, they are at a higher risk of showing schizophrenic