Biological Explanations Of Schizophrenia Essay
How do the four biological explanations fit together to explain schizophrenia or are they mutually exclusive?
The biological explanation can be divided into subcategories to explain schizophrenia; genetic, biochemistry (dopamine hypothesis), brain structure and season of birth explanation.
Firstly there’s genetics. This view says some people posses certain genes that predispose them to schizophrenia. However, if schizophrenia was totally and always inherited then concordance rates between MZ twins (identical) and DZ twins (non identical) would be 100%. If on the other hand genetic inheritance had nothing to do with schizophrenia, the concordance rates would be close to 0%. Gottesman found there was a concordance rate of 48% for MZ twins as opposed to 17% for DZ twins. Kendler supported this, finding there was a concordance rate of 50% …show more content…
The third explanation is brain structure which says schizophrenia is the result of abnormal brain structure and there are differences in the brains of schizophrenics and non-schizophrenics. Brown said that many schizophrenics have lighter brains with enlarged ventricles. However, a study by Pearlson has failed to replicate these findings. It is also possible that the ventricular enlargement could be the result rather than the cause of schizophrenia. Suddath et al’s twin study supports this as he found MZ twins where one twin has schizophrenia does actually have larger ventricles than the other.
The biological explanation is a reductionism explanation because it explains complex behaviour by the simplest terms, genetics, inheritance, neurotransmitters, neuroanatomy and the flu virus.
The biological approach emphasizes nature and ignores nurture; this approach therefore ignores the stress part of the diathesis stress model and so ignores psychological and environmental
The biological explanation can be divided into subcategories to explain schizophrenia; genetic, biochemistry (dopamine hypothesis), brain structure and season of birth explanation.
Firstly there’s genetics. This view says some people posses certain genes that predispose them to schizophrenia. However, if schizophrenia was totally and always inherited then concordance rates between MZ twins (identical) and DZ twins (non identical) would be 100%. If on the other hand genetic inheritance had nothing to do with schizophrenia, the concordance rates would be close to 0%. Gottesman found there was a concordance rate of 48% for MZ twins as opposed to 17% for DZ twins. Kendler supported this, finding there was a concordance rate of 50% …show more content…
The third explanation is brain structure which says schizophrenia is the result of abnormal brain structure and there are differences in the brains of schizophrenics and non-schizophrenics. Brown said that many schizophrenics have lighter brains with enlarged ventricles. However, a study by Pearlson has failed to replicate these findings. It is also possible that the ventricular enlargement could be the result rather than the cause of schizophrenia. Suddath et al’s twin study supports this as he found MZ twins where one twin has schizophrenia does actually have larger ventricles than the other.
The biological explanation is a reductionism explanation because it explains complex behaviour by the simplest terms, genetics, inheritance, neurotransmitters, neuroanatomy and the flu virus.
The biological approach emphasizes nature and ignores nurture; this approach therefore ignores the stress part of the diathesis stress model and so ignores psychological and environmental