Outline and Evaluate the Biomedical model of abnormality
Outline and Evaluate Biological Explanation for Mental Illness
The Biomedical model of Mental Illness states that metal illness is caused by either a physical problem with the brain, for example that some schizophrenic patients have parts of there hippocampus missing. Genetics, meaning that you inherit a genetic pre-disposition to depression or some other mental illness as someone in your close family had that mental illness, or down to neurotransmitter (serotonin, dopamine...) imbalances in your brain leading to mental illnesses such as depression (low serotonin levels).
There is a large amount of evidence to back these assumptions up. Firstly in support of the theory that some mental illnesses are caused by physical defects in the brain, there have been CAT scans done on mono-zygotic twins (genetically identical twins) in which one of the twins is well and other suffers from schizophrenia , and in the affected twin there are noticeable holes in the hippocampus which could be an explanation as to why that twin has schizophrenia. In a normal brain, one without an affected hippocampus, the brain can differentiate between the memories that relate to you and are not to do with you, however with the affected brain you may not be able to differentiate and so can lose touch with reality, a key symptom of schizophrenia. Further support that mental illness is caused by structural defects is a tissue samples of brain neurons taken from mono-zygotic twins in which one is normal and the other effected. In the affected twin their neurons are disorganized, compared with the unaffected twin whose neurons are organized. This supports the theory that mental illness is caused by structural abnormalities as the normal twin has a different brain structure to that of the affected twin and the only variable is the neurone structure, or holes in the hippocampus with the previous example. thus showing that there must be a link to the structure of the neurons or hippocampus
The Biomedical model of Mental Illness states that metal illness is caused by either a physical problem with the brain, for example that some schizophrenic patients have parts of there hippocampus missing. Genetics, meaning that you inherit a genetic pre-disposition to depression or some other mental illness as someone in your close family had that mental illness, or down to neurotransmitter (serotonin, dopamine...) imbalances in your brain leading to mental illnesses such as depression (low serotonin levels).
There is a large amount of evidence to back these assumptions up. Firstly in support of the theory that some mental illnesses are caused by physical defects in the brain, there have been CAT scans done on mono-zygotic twins (genetically identical twins) in which one of the twins is well and other suffers from schizophrenia , and in the affected twin there are noticeable holes in the hippocampus which could be an explanation as to why that twin has schizophrenia. In a normal brain, one without an affected hippocampus, the brain can differentiate between the memories that relate to you and are not to do with you, however with the affected brain you may not be able to differentiate and so can lose touch with reality, a key symptom of schizophrenia. Further support that mental illness is caused by structural defects is a tissue samples of brain neurons taken from mono-zygotic twins in which one is normal and the other effected. In the affected twin their neurons are disorganized, compared with the unaffected twin whose neurons are organized. This supports the theory that mental illness is caused by structural abnormalities as the normal twin has a different brain structure to that of the affected twin and the only variable is the neurone structure, or holes in the hippocampus with the previous example. thus showing that there must be a link to the structure of the neurons or hippocampus