GOTTESMAN

• biochemical explanation of mental illness:

  • For us to think, feel or make a decision or act on it, the brain cells must transmit information in the form of electrical impulses around the brain. Where each brain cell ends there is a gap, or synapse, leading to the adjacent brain cell. For information to pass from 1 cell to another the next, chemicals called neurotransmitters must pass across the synapse
• Biochemical explanation of mental illness:

  Different neurotransmitters are important in different parts of the brain are believed to be important in regulating different mental processes. One explanation for mental illness involves the possibility that symptoms are the result or abnormal neurotransmitter levels or action
• Monoamine hypothesis of depression:

  • dopamine - regulates mood
  • noradrenaline - implicated activity levels
  • serotonin - important in controlling the activity of noradrenaline and dopamine
• Monoamine hypothesis of depression:

  • reduction in serotonin lead to a failure to regulate normal dopamine & noradrenaline function
  • disruption to monoamine levels = result of abnormally high levels of an enzyme that breaks down monoamines, reducing their action & disrupting the passage of information around the brain
• dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia:

  • Dopamine (or DA) is widely believed to be important in the functioning of several brain systems that may be implicated in the symptoms of schizophrenia. Early versions of the dopamine hypothesis identified a possible role for high levels of dopamine in certain lower parts of the brain, which could account for some symptoms of schizophrenia. For example, an excess of dopamine in those centres of the brain responsible for speech production may cause hallucinations of voices.
• dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia:

  More recently, a new take on the dopamine hypothesis has focused instead or reduced dopamine levels or activity in the brain's cortex (Goldman-Rakic et al., 2004). Thus low levels or activity of dopamine in the pre-frontal cortex, which is responsible for thinking and decision-making, may explain other symptoms of schizophrenia, including apathy and incoherent thought or speech.
• Dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia:

  It is of course possible that both these hypotheses are correct, and that disruption to the dopamine systems in different parts of the brain are responsible for different symptoms of schizophrenia.
• Aim: to examine how vulnerable the children of 2 parents with mental illness are to developing a mental illness themselves
• Sample:

  • 2.7 million Danish people born before 1997, who had an identifiable mother and father
  • minimun age was 10 years
  • 196 couples who had a diagnosis of schizophrenia - 270 children
  • 83 couple who both had bipolar - 146 children
• IV: parental schizophrenia or bipolar disorder
• DV: diagnosis of any mental illness
• Results:

  • risk for mental illness greater for offspring of 2 parents with a diagnosis 27.3% of offspring with both parents having schizophrenia developed it before 52 & 67.5% developed a mental illness of some sort
• Results for 1 parent diagnosed:

  • schizophrenia - risk was 7% & 11.9% for any diagnosis
  • 4.4% developed bipolar & 9.2% with a mental illness
• Conclusion:

  • having both parents with a serious mental illness is associated with a significantly increased risk of developing not only that disorder but mental illness in general
  • having 1 parent with a serious mental illness carries a lower risk
  • information is useful for genetic counselling