An experimental treatment makes dopaminergic neurons fire less often in pathways involved in processing sound and speech and in pathways involved in deciding what deserves attention. People diagnosed with schizophrenia recorded each time they experienced an auditory hallucination during the seven days before treatment and during the seventh week of treatment.
| Time of recording | Mean number of auditory hallucinations per person in seven days |
|---|---|
| Before treatment | 16.5 |
| Seventh week of treatment | 6.0 |
Using the dopamine hypothesis, explain the change shown in the table and predict how the treatment might affect delusions.
144 exam-style questions on OCR GCSE Psychology 3.2 Theories/Explanations, covering 3.2.1 Clinical characteristics of schizophrenia, 3.2.2 Key statistics of schizophrenia, 3.2.3 Dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia, 3.2.4 Brain structure and function in schizophrenia; criticisms, 3.2.5 Social drift theory of schizophrenia, 3.2.6 Schizophrenia research study: Daniel et al. (1991), 3.2.7 Clinical characteristics of clinical depression, 3.2.8 Key statistics of clinical depression, 3.2.9 Social rank theory of clinical depression, 3.2.10 ABC Model of clinical depression, and 3.2.11 Clinical Depression research study: Tandoc et al. (2015). Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.