The Diagnostic And Biological Theories Of Schizophrenia

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According to Huffman and Sanderson (2014), Schizophrenia means “split mind,”but when Eugen Bleuler coined the term in 1911, he was referring to the fragmenting of thought processes and emotion (p. 350). The disorders occurred when a person has their onset in the mid to late teen years. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) of schizophrenia is DSM-IV. Schizophrenia is one of the most traumatic mental disorders characterized by “delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking or motor behavior, and negative symptoms such as diminished emotional expression” (Huffman and Sanderson, 2014, p.338). People living with the mental illness have a negative effects in their lives as well of their families and their communities. The chance of a person to have Schizophrenia that passed from one generation to another generation are at high risk due to heredity. The biological theories of schizophrenia mainly focus on genetics, neurotransmitters, and brain abnormalities.
The first biological theory is genetic. Genes can pass down from their parents or grandparents. Genetics is random, for an example, if the mom or dad has it, the children will have a fifty fifty chance of getting it, but things will be different if the disorder alleles is dominant. According to the table of Huffman and Sanderson (2014), “Relationship to person with Schizophrenia,” the more closer the relatives to the person with Schizophrenia the higher chance that they will have Schizophrenia than distant relatives. For the third degree relative, the general population occurs the illness to be 1 percent. The second degree relative shows that the percentage are higher than those in the third degree relative. The second degree relatives include uncle, aunt, grandchild, half-siblings, nephew and niece. The first degree relatives have a much higher chance to get the disorder compared to the others degree. The higher risk will be with the identical twin, their chance to get Schizophrenia is 48 percent. However, Schizophrenia doesn’t produce the disorder itself by just only genetics. According to WebMD, some scientists think the interactions between genes and the environment are necessary for Schizophrenia to develop. Many environmental factors may be involved, such as exposure to viruses or malnutrition before birth, problems during birth, heavy adolescent marijuana use. The second biological theory is Neurotransmitters. The neurotransmitters are chemicals that allow the brain cells to interact with each other. Lacking or having excessive amount of dopamine can be a problem. For an example, the increases of amount of dopamine can increase the chance of a person to show some symptoms of Schizophrenia, and the decrease of dopamine can cause Parkinson 's. If a person can control their use of dopamine activity, the symptoms of Schizophrenia will be reduced. Egan and Hyde’s (2000) study found Particularly important for schizophrenia research is the finding that dopamine subsystems are interconnected and that damage to different brain regions previously implicated in schizophrenia can have marked effects of dopamine neurotransmission. Dopamine has place an important part in the neurotransmitters that leads to Schizophrenia. The dopamine has shown that there are positive and negative symptoms. Brisch, Saniotis, Wolf, Bielaum, Bernstein, Steiner and Bogerts (2014) suggest: The positive symptoms of schizophrenia include hallucinations and delusions as a result of the increased subcortical release of dopamine, which augments D2 receptor activations... The negative symptoms of schizophrenia include anhedonia, lack of motivation, and poverty of speech, which result from reduced D1 receptor activation in the prefrontal cortex. The last biological theory is brain abnormalities. The brain abnormalities shows the Schizophrenia brain and normal brain are different in which a person has Schizophrenia have a lower level of activity in their frontal and temporal lobes (Huffman and Sanderson, 2014). When the frontal and temporal lobes are damaged can lead to interference of the thought, attention
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Hallucination is a false imaginary with no appropriate external stimuli that can lead people hearing sounds and voices that speaking with them. According to Huffman and Sanderson (2014), “the person with Schizophrenia is more likely to be self-destructive and suicidal than violent toward others” (p. 351). An example of hallucination is when a person hears someone calling their name, whereas they did not. This also goes back to being stressed because hallucination can lead to panic and anxiety since the victim is seeing false images and

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