History of Eugenics
States of ‘defectiveness’ are socially constructed, not biological, states of being.

For the purpose of this assignment I will be using specifically the idea of mental ‘defectiveness’ using research done on schizophrenia and depression, seeing as there is a lot of debate as to weather these mental disorders are biological or psychosocial. I will be using APA format. There are two main tests done on patients with depression, the dexamethasone-suppression test or DST and lower MHPG levels in urine. DST measures the cortisol levels in the body, if you have elevated levels you are supposed to be depressed, the problem is that this is very inconstant, some patients with normal DST results are depressed and some patients with elevated DST results are not depressed. The Archives of Internal Medicine stated “Data from studies currently available do not support the use of dexamethasone ST in internal medicine practice.” (Shapiro, Lehman, & Greenfield, 1983) The Catecholamine Hypothesis suggests that patients have low levels of norepinephrine in the brain which is translated to finding lover levels of MHPG in urine and causes depression, however they have not proved this, they have only proven that depressed patients have this deficit but not why, which could be from a number of things, again proving that it could be an effect of sadness not a cause.
There are quite a few other theories as to what causes people to be depressed, including serotonin levels, hypoglycemia and hypothyroidism. Serotonin and dopamine levels are related to neurotransmitters called monoamines The Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) stated “Currently, no clear evidence links abnormal serotonin receptor activity in the brain to depression. Increased receptors for serotonin have been observed in the brains of suicide victims (box 4-B), but there are conflicting