Hector and his mother have schizophrenia. Hector has hallucinations and hears voices telling
him what to do. He suffers from delusions, for example he thinks he is in charge of the country.
Hector also has disordered thinking as he is unable to make connections between his thoughts.
His doctor believes that Hector’s schizophrenia is caused by neurotransmitters, and has given
him antipsychotic medication to treat his schizophrenia.
Discuss the function of neurotransmitters as an explanation of Hector’s schizophrenia. You
must make reference to the context in your answer. (8)
● AO1, AO2, CA - 3 Paragraphs, No conclusion required
One explanation of schizophrenia associated with neurotransmitters refers to the dopamine
hypothesis. It is suggested that excess levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine may result in
schizophrenia. Another, slightly different view, is that more dopamine is utilised in the brain of
a person with schizophrenia, so these patients are over-sensitive to dopamine. It may be the
case that Hector is experiencing the symptoms of schizophrenia such as unable to make
connections between his thoughts due to this. However, there are alternative explanations
for Schizophrenia such as the genetic explanation. This may be the case with regards to
Hector as Hector’s mother also has schizophrenia which suggests that it may in fact be
genetic as opposed to being to do with Hector’s neurotransmitter or having excess levels of
dopamine.
The dopamine hypothesis also suggests that overstimulation of dopamine in the
mesolimbic pathway is thought to be linked to positive symptoms of schizophrenia. This is
known as Hyperdopaminergia. This is likely to be the case for Hector as he is experiencing
only positive symptoms of schizophrenia such as hallucinations and hearing voices telling him
what to do, delusions such as thinking he is in charge in the country and disordered thinking.
Another neurotransmitter implicated in schizophrenia is glutamate. Low levels of glutamate
are associated with high dopamine levels. It may be that Hector actually has low levels of
this neurotransmitter which leads to excess dopamine levels. This may therefore be the
reason behind why he has been prescribed antipsychotic medication to treat his
schizophrenia symptoms e.g being unable to make connections between his thoughts.
However, in order to be sure this is the case, Hector’s doctor would need to see if the
antipsychotic medication does reduce his symptoms. If so, this would suggest that an
imbalance in Hector’s neurotransmitters were the cause of his symptoms.
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