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Biological Explanations Of Schizophrenia Essay

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Schizophrenia is considered a serious mental health disorder that causes significant impairments to an individual's daily life. An individual suffering from Schizophrenia interprets reality in an abnormal way, which can cause them to experience hallucinations, delusions, disorganized thoughts and speech, and abnormal behavior. An estimated one percent of the national population is affected by schizophrenia; in other words, about one million people are directly affected according to the National Alliance on Mental Health (NAMI). In addition, schizophrenia is best explained from a biological perspective, categorizing it as a biological disorder. Since it deals with biological details, researchers have been studying the “neurotransmitters responsible …show more content…

This causes an individual to release an overload of dopamine. Having an excessive amount of dopamine released at one time causes an individual to intensely focus on multiple things at once, making it difficult for them to comprehend it all. Living with schizophrenia can be extremely difficult and create biological, psychological, and sociological impairments within their daily lives. As previously mentioned, the biological viewpoint focuses on the neurotransmitters and genetics of schizophrenia and how it can affect an individual. There are different biological theories on how schizophrenia develops, one is the vulnerability of an individual, which states that individuals have a biologically determined susceptibility of developing schizophrenia, but it will only develop when the individual encounters certain environmental conditions (Whitbourne. 149). Another biological theory is the neurodevelopmental hypothesis, which focuses on the development of schizophrenia during adolescence or early adulthood because of genetic control alterations of brain maturation. This theory can be used to …show more content…

Medications, known as neuroleptics, are the main type of treatment. Neuroleptics is a broad category that is split into two different categories, typical and atypical antipsychotics. The main typical antipsychotics include chlorpromazine and haloperidol, and they “… reduce symptoms primarily by acting on the dopamine receptor system in areas of the brain associated with delusions, hallucinations, and other positive symptoms” (Whitbourne 151). Typical antipsychotics have serious side effects, such as extrapyramidal symptoms and tardive dyskinesia, both motor disorders. Extrapyramidal symptoms can cause rigid muscles, tremors, restlessness, and muscle spasms, while tardive dyskinesia causes involuntary movements of the mouth, arms, and trunk of the body. These side effects, along with the more settle ones like fatigue, can make if extremely difficult to complete daily tasks and make someone not want to take the antipsychotic. This led to researchers inventing new medications, which they called atypical antipsychotics. They’re built to operate against serotonin and dopamine, giving them the nickname serotonin-dopamine antagonists. Risperidone (Risperdal), olanzapine (Zyprexa), and quetiapine (Seroquel) are considered safer antipsychotics, although they still have serious side effects such as greater insulin resistance and increases in blood cholesterol. Clinicians take this

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Transmitters for dopamine are over stimulated and because of this, the symptoms of schizophrenia are increased. Drugs such as amphetamines that activate dopamine are proven to worsen some patients with schizophrenia. Due to the fact that certain drugs that increase dopamine cause more symptoms, shows how there is a connection between dopamine and schizophrenia. Furthermore, drugs that block dopamine are shown to help patients with schizophrenia. The other thought with the dopamine hypothesis is that there is another dopamine receptor could be causing it which is dopamine D2.

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After numerous decades of research and studies, the medical community has a broader and more in-depth understanding of the psychology behind this complex illness resulting in thousands of lives being saved. Researchers have been able to identify the behaviors and triggers associated with schizophrenia, providing accurate diagnosis’ and treatments of the individual. Nancy C. Andreasen summarizes that schizophrenia “…is characterized by symptoms that reflect multiple mental processes: hallucination or abnormality in perception; delusion, or abnormality in inferential thinking; disorganized speech, or abnormalities in language; absence of normal behaviors, or disorganized behavior” (Andreasen, 107). This discovery allows physicians to fully understand what the ill are experiencing and giving them the ability treat the sick. In contrast to the Middle Age modern society is more educated on the subject of

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