Disorders for Exam 4

What are some of the advantages of diagnosis? What are some of the disadvantages? What are some of the barriers to diagnosis?

Diagnosis offers significant advantages by guiding tailored treatments, facilitating access to services, and providing validation for symptoms. However, it brings disadvantages like social stigma, over-identification with the label, and risk of inaccurate assessments. Barriers to diagnosis often include high costs, limited provider access, and fear of stigma.

Describe how behavior modification therapy utilizes conditioning.

Therapists apply the principles of learning by reinforcement,

including operant and classical conditioning.

What is the target behavior in cognitive therapy?

Thoughts intervene between events and emotions. A person's self-defeating attitudes and assumptions are challenged.

What is emotional therapy? How does it differ from cognitive therapy?

Talking about emotional problems enables people to gain insights into their causes. It may also serve as treatment. Emotional therapy focuses primarily on the patient's emotions, while cognitive therapy focuses on thoughts and behaviors

How can biofeedback be used in therapeutic ways? How is this similar to the proposed uses of EEGs and fMRIs in therapy?

provides real-time data on physiological functions—such as heart rate, skin temperature, or muscle tension—allowing individuals to learn voluntary control over involuntary bodily processes to treat conditions like anxiety, chronic pain, and hypertension

Describe the use of VR in therapy.

Controlled virtual immersion environment combines realistic street scenes, sounds, and odors that allow people to relive traumatic events, develop coping strategies for them, and extinguish their emotional response to the trauma.

What do we mean by "positive" and "negative" symptoms of schizophrenia? What are some examples of each?

• Delusions: beliefs that distort reality

• Hallucinations: distorted perceptions

• Disorganized speech: incoherent statements

• Disorganized behavior or excessive agitation

• Catatonic behavior

• Negative symptoms: blunted emotions or loss of interest and drive; the absence of some normal response

How may the brains of individuals with schizophrenia develop differently?

Enlarged ventricles and a thinner cortex, suggest cell loss occurs in these areas. Not all disorders show such apparent tissue loss, but abnormal blood flow or metabolism may be detectable by either fMRI or PET.

Which neurochemicals are associated with schizophrenia? Briefly, describe the Dopamine Theory of Schizophrenia.

• Abnormalities in GABA and GABA-binding sites

• Changes in the NMDA, glutamate in some people with schizophrenia:

leading to development of new classes of glutamate drug therapy

• Dopamine abnormalities were the first to be linked to

schizophrenia.

The dopamine theory of schizophrenia posits that symptoms arise from dysregulated dopamine transmission: hyperactive subcortical dopamine ( receptor stimulation) causes positive symptoms (hallucinations, delusions), while cortical hypodopaminergia contributes to cognitive deficits and negative symptoms

Which conditions are considered mood disorders?

Mood disorders include major depressive disorders, and bipolar disorder

Compare and contrast bipolar 1, bipolar 2, and major depression.

Bipolar 1 (BD-I): Defined by at least one manic episode (lasting days or requiring hospitalization). Manic episodes can involve psychotic features.

Bipolar 2 (BD-II): Defined by at least one hypomanic episode (milder than mania, days) and at least one major depressive episode.

Major Depression (MDD): Defined by one or more major depressive episodes without any history of mania or hypomania

How do SSRI's work? How do MAOI's work?

SSRIs (e.g., Zoloft, Prozac) block the reabsorption (reuptake) of serotonin, while MAOIs inhibit the enzyme that breaks down neurotransmitters like serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine

What other non-medical treatments are known to be effective for depression?

Cognitive-behavioral therapy

What kinds of conditions are considered anxiety disorders?

Include phobias, panic disorders, agoraphobia, and generalized anxiety disorder

What types of drugs are used to treat anxiety?

• GABA-enhancing benzodiazepines

• SSRIs (antidepressants) that act on noradrenaline and serotonin are now commonly used to treat anxiety; gradual changes in brain structure are implied.

What other non-medical treatments are known to be effective for anxiety?

Cognitive-behavioral therapy

Which groups, ages, sexes, are at highest risk for TBI?

The most common form of brain damage in people younger than 40. More common in males, soldiers, and athletes. Odds increase again as individuals reach ages past 74

Define coup, contrecoup.

A coup injury occurs on the same side of the brain directly underneath the point of impact.

A contrecoup injury occurs on the side of the brain opposite the site of impact

What is CTE and what leads to the development of CTE?

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a progressive, neurodegenerative disease found in people who have suffered repeated, cumulative head impacts, such as concussions or "sub-concussive" hits that do not cause immediate symptoms

What are the two kinds of stroke?

• Ischemic stroke

• Hemorrhagic stroke

What kinds of treatment are known to be effective for recovery following a stroke?

Constraint-induced therapy- Intact limb is held in a sling for several hours per day, forcing the patient to use the impaired limb.

What is MS?

Loss of myelin in the motor and sensory nerves

What is the difference between major and mild neurocognitive disorders?

While both involve a decline in cognitive abilities (such as memory, language, or executive function) due to brain-based damage, mild NCD allows for independent living, whereas major NCD does not

What are the principle neuroanatomical changes in Alzheimer's?

• Neuritic (amyloid) plaques- Located mainly in the cerebral cortex. Also found in non-Alzheimer dementia

What are the symptoms of Parkinson's disease? Can cognitive symptoms appear?

Many symptoms resemble the changes in motor activity that take place with aging.

1. Tremor in one hand and slight stiffness in distal parts of the limbs.

2. Movements may become slower, face becomes mask-like, with loss of eye blinking and poverty of emotional expression

3. Body may stoop, and gait becomes a shuffle, with arms hanging motionless at the sides

4. Speech may slow and become monotonous, and difficulty swallowing may cause drooling

What are the four approaches to treating Parkinsons that we discussed?

1. Pharmacological treatments- Increasing the activity in whatever dopamine synapses remain

2. Anticholinergic drugs- Block the cholinergic systems that seem to show heightened activity in the absence of adequate dopamine activity

3. Surgery

4. Transplantation-Transplant embryonic dopamine cells into the basal ganglia

What is a prion?

A prion is an abnormally folded protein that causes progressive neurodegeneration.

What is ECT? What condition can it be used to treat? What are some of the disadvantages?

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)- Uses electrical current to produce seizures as a treatment for severe depression. Stimulates the production of chemicals (e.g., BDNF) that restore inactive cells to a more active mode

Problems- • Need for anesthesia. ECT leads to memory loss that can show a cumulative effect with repeated treatments.

What is tardive dyskinesia? What type of medication might lead to this condition?

Inability to stop the tongue from moving, motor side effects of neuroleptic drugs, can last long after the person stops taking the drug