Environmental Factors and Its Relation to the Dopamine Hypothesis
Jordan Blake
Introduction
The control will have a normal
stable environment with normal
The Dopamine Hypothesis is the hypothesis that excess
dopamine, which is a chemical produced by the brain that
causes happiness or satisfaction, causes schizophrenic
symptoms such as hallucinations, delusion, and an
overactive neurological system. As further research was
conducted, it was found that environmental factors that
cause stress might have the same effects as that of
dopamine. Therefore, environmental factors may possibly
be another cause of schizophrenia.
Purpose
The importance of this research is to better understand the
Importance
causes ofofschizophrenia
research since it is a complicated disease
as it is. Having a better understanding of the causes of the
disease, or even recognizing the symptoms of it can lead
the way to more advanced medication that could keep the
symptoms under control more effectively.
Hypothesis
If the roundworm receives environmental stresses, then
their movements will be negatively affected (in the form of
spasms and paralysis) similar to the results of excess
dopamine.
S A R A S OTA
MaST Research Institute
Sarasota High School
Sarasota, Florida 34237
Methods Discussion
The environment group
The group with
will get stressed out by
dopamine will have the
the slight adjustment of The expected results of the experiment would be that the
food.
supplement L-Tyrosine
in their food.
their normal
number of worms with movements that were negatively
temperature.
affected in the environment group would be close to the
amount of the worms negatively affected in the dopamine
group. Both groups would have a strong contrast to the
results of the control, which would be healthy and active
worms.
Conclusions
Each petri dish will have about 20 worms . Their There are no errors that can be identified yet because the
movements will be observed over the course of one experiment has not been performed yet, however there was a
week. change in the planning for the eperiment midway because
Expected Results originally roundworms were going to be used for the
experiment. However, they were substituted with
earthworms because earthworms do not require E. coli as a
food substance.
Future Research
In the future, possible research that could be conducted
would be how to find medication that could permanently rid
a patient of schizophrenic symptoms.
References
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