Psychopathology intro, Schizo 1.

what is meant by mental health and mental illness are two points on a continuum

mental health is connected to physical health, and everyone’s mental health varies

but mental illness means the person has significant distress, impaired functioning.

and mental disorders have biological and psychological underpinings

Describe the Origins of Psychiatry

in early 20th century it was discovered that patients with paralytic dementia had it due to syphillis a physical illness

which changed what people thought because mental illness was viewed as having “weak character” “a problem of willpower”

because of misjudgment psychiatry emerged: in order to consider the biological part of mental illness

how prevalent are psychiatric disorders globally and in us, canada

12% of people globally have one

1/3 of us citizens report symtoms of one in their lifetime

5 million canadians qualify for an anxiety, mood, substance disorder

how does the DSM-5-TR diagnose patients? general method

standardized system: tallies how observable symptoms, duration, etc clinical criteria to see if qualify for a disorder

but in reality peoplle mental illness is more complicated but dsm has wide range of symptoms to qualify for disorders to account

what is ICD-11

the international classification of diseases, (physcial and mental)

what is important to understand about diagnosing and treating mental disorders?

no mental illness is exactly the same, disorders are a construct, and complex genetics are involved

no treatment is thus one size fits all. and patients that qualify for the same disorder can show different syptoms, and patients with different disorders can show similar symptoms, and have different causes

modern treatment: medication (bio) and therapy (psychosocial)

what are GWAS

Genome-wide-association studies. it shows which genes are shared with psychriatric disorders

modern research shows: its more connected (schozphrenia - bipolar, anxiety - depression)

Schizophrenia (what is it)

means split of mental functions aka dissociative thinking

(non logical thinking), 1% of population, diagnosed in adolescence, early adulthood, people can present very differently

Positive symptoms

means excess, symptoms that add smth

What are the Positive symptoms of Schizophrenia
(HDED + their definition)

Hallucinations (auditory common)
Delusions (false beliefs, usually personal
Excited/Disorganized motor behaviour

Disorganized thought and speech

What are Negative symptoms

symptoms that reduce, take away an ability you naturally have

Schizophrenia Negative Symptoms (SAMPS)

Speech is reduced (alogia)

Affect is flat

Motivation is gone or lessened
Pleasure (cannot feel)

Social withdrawal

what are the Neurocognitive impairments of those with Schizophrenia

Poor information processing (memory, planning, decision making, social cognition)

what is the Genetic Component of Schizophrenia

the disorder has a strong genetic component but no single gene

stress can activate the disorder. a genetic susceptibility to stress can lead to schizophrenia

also metabolism of dopamine, synaptic plasticity genes can. be involved

If schizophrenia is inherited what prediction can we make about its occurrence in families

people who have family members with schizophrenia may carry the genetics that make them susceptible to developing it

if its genetic youre more likely to have it

what are twin studies

studies which compare identical and fraternal twins to estimate whether something has greater genetic or environmental influence

concordant (twin studies)

both twins have disorder

discordant (twin studies)

only one twin has the disorder

what does higher concordance vs discordance suggest

higher concordance suggests there is more genetic influence

if theres discordance it suggests there are other factors (environmental?) which play a role

why do adoption studies exist

if you compare siblings that are not genetically related but share the same family/environment you can find out what the influence is of environment without the common shared genetics of a biological family getting in the way / being a confound

describe the heritability of schizophrenia using twin studies

heritability: how much the variation of a trait is due to genetic differences in the population

schizophrenia is considered partly heritable

its in 1% of general population while half of identical twins share the disorder while fraternal twins 16%

even less common when adoptive

for identical: 50% variability is due to environmental influence (turn on genes)

why do fraternal twins have higher concordance than regular siblings despite sharing both 50% of genes

fraternal twins were in same pregnancy in utero

born same time

grew up same time, were treated more similarly by parents than if they were siblings

Endophenotypes in Schizophrenia (what are they, what do they show, how do they help, and how are eye tracking studies involved)

subtle differences that can be quantified with testing

shows people are genetically susceptible to getting these traits/subtle differences because the genes were there before the disorder manifested

helps find risk, but not for diagnosis

eye tracking studies show they kind have jerky movements, rather than smooth, showing differences in cognition, one sign of schizo