Pysch disorders pt. 3

Schizophrenia

• Profound disruption of basic psychological processes

• Distorted perception of reality

• Altered or blunted emotion

• Disturbances in thought, motivation, and behavior

• Positive, negative, & cognitive symptoms

Positive symptoms

Changes in behavior or thoughts

Negative symptoms

Absence/withdrawal of traits or experiences

Hallucinations

false perceptual experiences (hearing, seeing, smelling)

Delusions

false beliefs, often strange and gradiose

Disorganized speech

ideas shift rapidly and incoherently among unrelated topics

Atypical or repetitive behavior

behavior that is inappropriate or ineffective in attaining goals (motor disturbances)

Negative symptoms of schizophrenia

• Emotional or social withdrawal (loss of interest in socializing)

• Blunted/flat affect

• Apathy, loss of motivation

• Poverty of speech (very minimal talking/responding)

Cognitive symptoms in schizophrenia

• Deficits in cognitive abilities (EF, attention, memory, problem-solving)

• Prevent people with schizophrenia from maintaining high-level/typical functioning (keeping a job, maintaining friendships)

Schizophrenia genetic factors

• Typically appears in adolescence or young adulthood

• no one gene, combination based

Concordance

Sharing of a characteristic

Schizophrenia concordance

Family, adoptive, and twin studies show a higher incidence among biological relatives

• In identical twins, concordance is 50%

• Fraternal twins, concordance is 17%

Schizophrenia stressors

• Adversity in childhood (trauma)

• Prenatal stress, maternal illnesses

• City living—possibly due to pollutants, exposure to other diseases, crowded conditions, tense social interactions

Vulnerable life stages for developing schizophrenia

• Before birth, complications during birth, type of environment during childhood

• Experiencing stress during more sensitive/critical periods - increases likelihood of developing schizophrenia

Schizophrenia drug treatments

• Chlorpromazine (Thorazine) – discovered in early 1950s

• First generation antipsychotics = antagonists, blocked dopamine receptors (D₂ receptors)

• Relieved positive symptoms

Dopamine hypothesis

Schizophrenia results from either excessive levels of dopamine release or dopamine receptors

Second generation antipsychotics

Effective in treating positive & negative symptoms

Ex: clozapine

Clozapine = blocks dopamine AND serotonin receptors

• Some 2nd gen antipsychotics increased dopamine release