Evaluation

• Research support strength - Family studies such as Gottesman show that risk increases with genetic similarity to family members who have schizophrenia. Adoption studies also show biological parents with schizophrenia passes the risk on to their children even if they grow up in an adoptive family. Hilker et al (2018) study showed concordance rate of 33% for identical twins and 7% for non-identical twins. This shows some people are more vunerable to schizophrenia due to genetic makeup and there's strong evidence base to support this.
• x- environmental factors - such as biological and psychological influences is shown to increase the risk of developing schizophrenia. Biological factors include birth complications and smoking THC cannabis in adolescence. Psych risk factors include childhood trauma. eg. 67% of people w/ schizophrenia reported at least one childhood trauma as opposed to 38% of a matched group with non-psychosis disorders. suggests genetic factors alone cannot provide a complete explanation.
• Neural correlates eval: evidence for dopamine strength - dopamine is involved in schizophrenia. 1st, amphetamines can increase DA levels and worsen symptoms of schizophrenia and induce it in patients without. 2nd, anti-psychotic drugs reduce DA + intensity of symptoms. 3rd, Some candidate genes act on the production of DA/DA receptors. Strongly suggests dopamine is involved in symptoms of schizophrenia.
• Neural correlates eval- evidence for dopamine strength - dopamine is involved in schiz. 1st, amphetamines can increase DA levels and worsen symptoms of schiz and induce them in patients without. 2nd, antipsychotics reduce DA and intensity of symptoms. 3rd, some candidate genes act on production of DA/DA receptors. strongly suggests dopamine is involved in symptoms of schiz.
• x - Glutamate - post-mortem and live scanning techniques have found increased levels of neurotransmitters. Glutamate in several regions of the brain of people with schiz and several candidate genes for schiz is involved in glutamate production and processing.