The Biological Explanation Of Schizophrenia

Every child in the study reported auditory hallucinations, which seems to be the main hallucination surrounding childhood Schizophrenia. These hallucinations were usually some sort of command, given to them by a wide range of sources, such as animals, people they actually know, fictional characters, malevolent forces, or people they have made up. Visual hallucinations were less prominent than auditory hallucinations, but still apparent in over 50 percent of the children. Tactile hallucinations were reported in only 25 percent of the children. These hallucinations were comparable to those that young adults with Schizophrenia experience, but were much less complex and only lasted between one week and one and a half years.

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder often characterized by abnormal social behaviour and failure to recognize what is real. Common symptoms include false beliefs, unclear or confused thinking, auditory hallucinations, reduced social engagement and emotional expression, and inactivity. A person with schizophrenia often hears voices, experiences delusions and hallucinations and may believe thoughts, feelings and actions are controlled or shared by someone else.

The cognitive explanation acknowledges the role of biological factors in schizophrenia, suggesting that the basis of the condition is abnormal brain activity producing visual and auditory hallucinations. Further features of the disorder emerge as people try to make sense of the hallucinations.

Schizophrenia is classified as a mental disorder that shows profound disruption of cognition and emotion which affects a person’s language, perception, thought and sense of self. The dopamine hypothesis states that schizophrenic’s neurones transmitting dopamine release the neurotransmitter too easily, leading to the characteristic symptoms of schizophrenia. This hypothesis claims that schizophrenics have abnormally high amounts of D2 receptors; receptors that receive dopamine, therefore resulting in a higher amount of D2 receptors binding to the receptors causing more impulses. Dopamine neurotransmitters play a

There are two main biological theories which explain the assumed causes of schizophrenia: Genetic and Dopamine Hypothesis.

Genetics can cause differences in brain chemistry and biochemistry may be important in the development and maintenance of schizophrenia. The dopamine

Schizophrenia is characterized as a psychotic disease that dramatically affects one 's nervous system to a point of where every day basic functions can be inhibited. It is defined as the loss of contact with the external environment the person is in due to delusional thoughts and hallucinations. Perception and behavior of someone plagued with this disease is notably altered and their actions can become a concern of the people around them. Like many other diseases that affect the nervous system it is not curable at the current time but it can be treated to lessen the signs and symptoms of the disease.

For the past fifty years treatment of schizophrenia has been marked by its basis on the dopamine hypothesis for schizophrenia. However, this model for the disease and its subsequent treatment have left many patients without relief or help in dealing with this disease which has lead to a search for a better model. The dopamine model lacks the recognition of a whole range of symptoms associated with the disease and therefore can not be an accurate basis for treatment. More recently, there has been a shift to the glutamate hypothesis which has been shown to more accurately characterize the wide range of symptoms experienced by patients living with this disorder as well as the possibility in improvements for drug treatments.

Additional, inferences about the disorder are provided by Whitcomb and Merrell (2013). The authors characterize the symptoms of schizophrenia as delusions that are “typically bizarre and implausible” and pronounced hallucinations such as hearing voices for long periods of time (p. 363). Additional, impairments noted by the authors include “severe disturbances in perception, thought and affect, a severe decline in personal and social functioning, poor personal hygiene, inability to function effectively at school or work, and a severe impairment in social relationships” (Whitcomb and Merrell, 2013 p.363).

The major support and refutation of the dopamine hypothesis has come from the examination of dopamine receptors in these regions of the brain. There are two main types of dopamine receptors, D1 and D2. However, within the category of D2 receptors, there are three subtypes, D2, D3, and D4. (5) Through PET scan analysis of dopamine usage in the brain and post-mordum molecular analysis of brain tissue, researcher were able to determine relative levels of dopamine receptors in patients with schizophrenia compared to non-schizophrenics. Overall analysis of dopamine

This paper defines schizophrenia from a biological and psychological perspective and also provides treatment to help combat symptoms of schizophrenia. This paper has three important contributions. First, by defining and expanding on schizophrenia from a biological perspective, I can identify the nature related predispositions. After expanding from a biological approach, secondly, I will analyze schizophrenia from a psychological aspect by determining if there is any environment or nurturing externals that can result to schizophrenia. Lastly, I will provide treatment details and also reveal early signs to schizophrenia. This paper is important because schizophrenia is an epic mental disease and it is crucially important to bring awareness to the public of how we can limit the illness. It is unclear whether schizophrenia have only a biological background or psychological background, but what was discovered is that both contribute to schizophrenia. Positive and negative treatment can be combatted undergoing pharmaceutical and psychotherapy,

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter associated with attention. Schizophrenics seem to have an increased number of D2 dopamine receptors on receiving neurons. This theory is support by the fact that Phenothiazines bind with D2 receptors and reduce positive symptoms. Another piece of supporting evidence is that Parkinson’s disease drug L-dopa, increase the level of dopamine and causes schizophrenic like symptoms in some people. However excess dopamine can only explain some types of schizophrenia, usually positive rather than negative.

Over the years, experiments have produced evidence to suggest that dopamine plays a role in the development of Schizophrenia (Howes, McCutcheon, & Stone, 2015). Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is produced in the substantia nigra and ventral tegmental regions of the brain. The belief that dopamine was involved in Schizophrenia arose after multiple studies performed with compounds produced an increase in extracellular concentrations of dopamine (Lieberman, Kane, & Alvir, 1987). The patients that were administered these compounds had similar symptoms to those observed from patients who were diagnosed with Schizophrenia (Lieberman et al., 1987).

In the research presented by Howes and Kapur (2009), they have pointed out a possible concern to invalidate the dopamine hypothesis in schizophrenia as current PET studies did not holding a firm position in measure the dopamine level, they were more to a postulation of a generated estimation from the data. Furthermore, Howes and Kapur (2009) also stressed that the role of dopamine could be circumvented by using the antipsychotic drugs which effectively to the psychotic symptoms but neutral to the dopamine system, thus the role of dopamine will be less critical in schizophrenia. This is because most of the recent antipsychotic researches only prove that dopamine merely contributed in providing a solution in alleviating the psychosis-liked-symptoms but those symptoms are not the symptoms only existed in schizophrenia.

The Dopamine Hypothesis theorizes that the symptoms portrayed in Schizophrenia is can be explained by abnormal function of dopamine in the brain. There have been three versions of the Dopamine Hypothesis. The first version of the hypothesis focuses on the dopamine receptors. Antipsychotic drugs that impact the metabolization and reabsorption of dopamine where found to be effective in treating the symptoms. It was theorized that if the symptoms of a Schizophrenic episode can be treated by the use of dopamine