1 - Introduction Flashcards
What are mental disorders?
Collection of symptoms and signs. There is a blurred distinction between the two.
What are definitions of mental disorders?
International Classification of Diseases - something that is going to impact daily life. Social deviance or conflict alone is not a sign of a mental disorder
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - similar outcome to ICD: need distress impacting daily life.
What are symptoms and sings?
Disturbances of emotion and mood (e.g. anxiety, depression, irritability, elation, flattening of mood, incongruous emotions), perception (hallucinations), thought (delusions), thinking processes (thought block). Depersonalisation, motor symptoms and sings, disturbances of body image, self, memory, consciousness, attention.
What are non-biological basis of mental disorders?
Severe environmental stressors. A number of precipitating and protective factors are implicated in the genesis of PTSD. Emergency management, clinical intervention and medications should prevent PTSD, but when these go wrong get negative symptoms. PTSD is caused by a vulnerable phenotype (gene x environment)
What are biological bases of mental disorders?
Genes are not the only source of mental disorders - it is a combination of gene and environment. Early biological explanations - “comes from the brain and from the brain only”: Hippocrates.
What are approaches to the study of the biological bases of mental disorders?
Disorders overlap - from different studies can diagnose different things. However, the following give an indication of the main area of investigation
What is the clinical descriptive studies approach?
Careful descriptive studies are necessary to identify clinical entities
What is the epidemiology approach?
Studies the prevalence of psychiatric disorders and their clinical and social correlates
What is the genetics approach?
Can see a genetic prevalence of mental disorders across different mental disorders
What is the brain imaging approach?
Allows the study of the structure and functioning of the brain (alive). Many types of brain imaging - MRI, SPET, PET, MEG, EEG. fMRI is the best for temporal and spatial resolution. Can be combined with other areas of study - e.g. receptor binding is measured using PET and SPET. Can also be used in post-mortem studies, e.g. to measure receptor density and neurotransmitter levels.
What is the neuropathology approach?
Taking brain to stain/slice to find functioning. Problem is that with most mental disorders, there isn’t any real distinctive sign of it in the brain.
What is the pharmacology approach?
Most drugs used to treat mental disorders is the result of serendipitous discovery of psychiatric medication. Know about the mechanism of action on the target of the brain, but don’t know why it actually alleviates problems associated with the mental disorder.
What is the psychology approach?
Social psychology (investigates a range of environmental factors), developmental, experimental, cognitive, neuropsychology, evolutionary.
