Analyse one model of abnormality I am going to analyse the biological model

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Analyse one model of abnormality

 I am going to analyse the biological model. There are four main branches coming off the biological model.

 The first one is infection. This explanation says that an infection can cause mental illness. This can be explained by a study through which it was proven, that babies who’s mother had the flu when they were pregnant, had a much greater risk of developing schizophrenia when they grew up. In other words, contracting illness or disease could mean that you have a greater chance of developing symptoms of abnormality. Meaning perhaps that illness or disease could affect the chemical make up of the brain and therefore could cause abnormality in some way. There is another example of a study in the nineteenth century. Syphilis was found to lead to brain deterioration which then led to psychotic behaviours such as delusions and other things.

Then there is another explanation, involving genetics. It says that people inherit genes through reproduction and that these genes cause abnormality. So for instance, a grandparent could have had schizophrenia and it could have passed through one generation without resurfacing but then could come through and resurfaced in their grandchildren. There have been plenty of studies into identical twins compared with fraternal twins to try and justify this assumption. Most of these studies have shown a distinct positive correlation when each identical twin is studied to see whether they at some point become mentally ill. Most studies show that if one identical twin becomes mentally ill, the other has a very high chance of doing the same. Whereas with fraternal twins this is not so much the case. An Identical twin is around five times more likely to become ill if the other twin does than if they were fraternal twins. Related to this also, is adoption studies. It is another study to try and prove this theory. Adoption studies show that if an adopted child contracts a mental illness then the biological parents are far more likely to have an illness to, rather than the adoptive parents.

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        The next biological model theory is biochemical. The biochemical theory suggests that it is the brains chemical make up that determines whether you become mentally ill. For example, if someone has too much or too little of a certain chemical or neurotransmitter in their brain this could cause a certain abnormality. These studies however do not show whether it is a cause or an effect.

        Finally, neuroanatomy. This suggests that it is the brains structure that determines whether someone becomes mentally ill. According to recent studies schizophrenics tend to have different shaped brains compared to ‘normal’ people. Other studies have ...

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