psychology
Describe and discuss biological explanations for schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia is a long term mental health condition, which is very complex. There are many explanations as to why an individual would have this illness, one of them being the biological explanation.
The biological explanation mainly suggests genes are responsible for the diagnosis of schizophrenia, as they pass on the illness. The greater the similarity genetically the higher the risk of developing schizophrenia. Due to this reason family studies were carried out to test the explanation. MZ and DZ were both a part of the studies too. MZ twins are 100% genetically similar and DZ twin 50% genetically similar, so if genetics was responsible for schizophrenia the concordance rate for MZ twins should be higher than DZ twins.
Gottesman and shields study supports the idea of genetics being the cause of schizophrenia. They looked at over 40 studies and found the concordance rates for schizophrenia increase as the genetic similarity increases. MZ twins were found to have 48% concordance rate, whereas siblings were found to have 9% concordance rate. This study confirmed that schizophrenia tends to run in families.
Even though the study shows genetics as being a contributing factor to developing schizophrenia, there is still a problem with the study. The problems is the MZ twins concordance rate could be high only because the twin imitated the other twins behaviour (social learning theory), and genetics may have nothing to do with it. The environment can play a role in the development of schizophrenia. Therefore this study can be criticized for not taking any other factors into account and only focusing on nature not nurture. So the influences are not clear.
Another study which supports genetics as being a contributing factor of developing schizophrenia was done by Heston. This was an adoption study. Adoption studies are able to separate the environment from genes. The children don’t share the same genes
Schizophrenia is a long term mental health condition, which is very complex. There are many explanations as to why an individual would have this illness, one of them being the biological explanation.
The biological explanation mainly suggests genes are responsible for the diagnosis of schizophrenia, as they pass on the illness. The greater the similarity genetically the higher the risk of developing schizophrenia. Due to this reason family studies were carried out to test the explanation. MZ and DZ were both a part of the studies too. MZ twins are 100% genetically similar and DZ twin 50% genetically similar, so if genetics was responsible for schizophrenia the concordance rate for MZ twins should be higher than DZ twins.
Gottesman and shields study supports the idea of genetics being the cause of schizophrenia. They looked at over 40 studies and found the concordance rates for schizophrenia increase as the genetic similarity increases. MZ twins were found to have 48% concordance rate, whereas siblings were found to have 9% concordance rate. This study confirmed that schizophrenia tends to run in families.
Even though the study shows genetics as being a contributing factor to developing schizophrenia, there is still a problem with the study. The problems is the MZ twins concordance rate could be high only because the twin imitated the other twins behaviour (social learning theory), and genetics may have nothing to do with it. The environment can play a role in the development of schizophrenia. Therefore this study can be criticized for not taking any other factors into account and only focusing on nature not nurture. So the influences are not clear.
Another study which supports genetics as being a contributing factor of developing schizophrenia was done by Heston. This was an adoption study. Adoption studies are able to separate the environment from genes. The children don’t share the same genes