The function of neurotransmitters as a theory/explanation.
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter. It is one of the chemicals in the brain which causes neurons to fire. The original dopamine hypothesis stated that schizophrenia suffered from an excessive amount of dopamine. This causes the neurons that use dopamine to fire too often and transmit too many messages.
High dopamine activity leads to acute episodes, and positive symptoms which include: delusions, hallucinations, confused thinking.
Evidence for this comes from that fact that amphetamines increase the amounts of dopamine. Large doses of amphetamine given to people with no history of psychological disorders produce behavior which is very similar to paranoid schizophrenia. Small doses given to people already suffering from schizophrenia tend to worsen their symptoms.
A second explanation developed, which suggests that it is not excessive dopamine but that fact that there are more dopamine receptors. More receptors lead to more firing and an over production of messages. Autopsies have found that there are generally a large number of dopamine receptors (Owen et al., 1987) and there was an increase in the amount of dopamine in the left amygdale (falkai et al. 1988) and increased dopamine in the caudate nucleus and putamen (Owen et al, 1978).
One criticism of the dopamine hypothesis is there is a problem with the chicken and egg. Is the raised dopamine levels the cause of the schizophrenia, or is it the raised dopamine level the result of schizophrenia? It is not clear which comes first. This suggests that one needs to be careful when establishing cause and effect relationships in schizophrenic patients.
One of the biggest criticisms of the dopamine hypothesis came when Farde et al found no difference between schizophrenics’ levels of dopamine compared with ‘healthy’ individuals in 1990.
Noll (2009) also argues around one third of patients do not respond to drugs which block dopamine so other neurotransmitters may be involved.
A final weakness of the dopamine hypothesis is that it is biologically deterministic. The reason for this is because if the individual does have excessive amounts of dopamine then does it really mean that thy ey will develop schizophrenia? This suggests that the dopamine hypothesis does not account for freewill.
Explain the function of neurotransmitters as an explanation of schizophrenia. (4) October 2019
Describe the function of neurotransmitters as an explanation for schizophrenia. (6) January 2020
Compare the function of neurotransmitters with one other biological explanation of schizophrenia. (6) October 2018
Evaluate two biological explanations for schizophrenia. One must be the function of neurotransmitters. (16) October 2017