ENLARGED VENTRICLES AO3

• Support for enlarged ventricles

  Supporting evidence for the structural brain abnormalities comes from Weinberger et al (1979) who used CAT scans and reported that ventricular size was greater in a group of 58 individuals with chronic schizophrenia than the 56 in the control group of people with no symptoms of schizophrenia.This therefore supports the enlarged ventricles explanation, reporting that those with schizophrenia have larger ventricles when compared with non-schizophrenics, supporting the structural brain abnormalities explanation.
• Refuting evidence against enlarged ventricles

  However, Weyandt (2006) reported that enlarged ventricles are associated with negative symptoms only, which implies that enlarged ventricles cannot explain all symptoms and incidences of schizophrenia. This evidence criticises the structural brain abnormalities argument, suggesting that it can only explain the negative symptoms of the disorder and therefore cannot offer us a complete explanation for schizophrenia.
• When assessing the role that brain abnormalities play in the development of schizophrenia

  Consideration must also be given to environmental factors, such as substance abuse and stress levels, these may also be having a damaging influence upon brain tissue
• This criticises the enlarged ventricles explanation and recognises that we cannot rule out environmental factors, such as stress and substance abuse being a potential contributing factor
• We should therefore consider biological explanations, alongside other potential contributing factors, including environmental ones to get a more complete understanding of schizophrenia
• As doses of antipsychotic medications increased in their sample of participants


  The density of brain tissue decreased
• This suggests that after schizophrenia has been diagnosed and is treated with antipsychotic medications, the medication is what causes some structural abnormalities
• Lyon et al therefore argue that enlarged ventricles seen in schizophrenics may be a result of using antipsychotic medication rather than a cause of the disorder, thereby critiquing this biological explanation of schizophrenia