Discuss one or more biological explanations for schizophrenia (16)

The biological approach explains schizophrenia in a number of different ways. One biological
explanation for schizophrenia is genetics. family studies have confirmed that the risk of
schizophrenia is in line with genetic similarity to a relative with the disorder. Gottesman and
shields found 68 twins who had some sort of diagnosis of schizophrenia and identified a 42%
concordance rate for MZ twins, which demonstrates there is evidence for a genetic basis of
schizophrenia. It also appears that there is a number of genes involved, making
schizophrenia polygenic.
Another biological explanation for schizophrenia is neural correlates of schizophrenia.
Neural correlates is when measurements of the structure and functions of the brain
correlates with a behaviour of experience. It is evident that there is a correlation between
brain structure and function to symptoms of schizophrenia, in fact both positive and
negative symptoms have neural correlates. The ventral striatum is involved in the process of
motivation and rewards, when there is lower activity of the ventral striatum, it can trigger
avolition- a negative symptom of schizophrenia where there is a loss of motivation. Allen
(2007) also found neural correlates of positive symptoms. It is evident that lower activation
levels in the superior temporal gyrus and anterior cingulate gyrus can also trigger positive
symptoms in schizophrenia, such as hallucinations.

A weakness of genetics as an biological explanation of schizophrenia is that it is very difficult

to separate the influence of nature-vs-nurture. Concordance rates are not 100% meaning
that schizophrenia cannot wholly be explained by genes and could instead mean that the
individual has a pre-disposition to schizophrenia, simply making the individual more at risk
of developing the disorder. Therefore this suggests that the biological account cannot give a
full explanation of the disorder, thus, reducing its explanatory power as it fails to explain
why there is not an 100% concordance rate and what other factors can affect the reason for
schizophrenia.

A weakness of neural correlates is that there is the correlation-causation problem. Research

indicates the enlarged ventricles may only explain certain schizophrenia symptoms. In fact,
Weyandt reported enlarged ventricles are only associated with negative symptoms,
implying the explanation cannot explain ALL symptoms and types of schizophrenia. It is not
known if unusual brain activity causes symptoms or if the symptoms cause unusual brain
activity. Therefore, this suggests the biological approach lacks comprehensiveness as it is
still questioned if neural correlates cause schizophrenia or if schizophrenia causes neural
correlates like if unusual brain activity in the ventral striatum causes avolition or if avolition
causes unusual brain activity in the ventral striatum. Making this explanation incomplete as
there it is unsure if neural correlates explains why patients get schizophrenia.
Another weakness of genetics as a biological explanation of schizophrenia is that it is
reductionist. This explanation solely focuses on genes and how people may inherit
schizophrenia. However, it cannot be the sole factor, due to the fact that MZ twins who are
genetically identical only share a concordance rate of 40-60%. This has adopted a
reductionist stance as it fails to consider other biological or other factors. Such as, family
dynamics or biochemistry. Therefore, this explanation lacks value as we cannot solely use
this explanation to explain why someone has got schizophrenia as if we just used this
explanation it would still be unclear why if one MZ twin has schizophrenia why the other
twin only has a 40-60% risk of getting it too.

Lastly, a strength of genetics as a biological explanation of schizophrenia is that it has

multiple explanations for schizophrenia such as DNA mutations.
Although two thirds of people with schizophrenia have no relative with a similar diagnosis.
We can still use genetics to explain why people still may have schizophrenia. For example,
one explanation for this is a mutation in parental DNA, for example a mutation in paternal
sperm cells which can be caused by radiation or viral infection. There is evidence of a
positive correlation between parental age and risk of schizophrenia. Therefore, this
explanation has an increased explanatory power, as although genetics alone cannot explain
all cases of schizophrenia, research built off genetics has been able to create multiple
explanations of schizophrenia causes.