11 Schizophrenia Flashcards
What are the three types of symptoms for schizophrenia?
Positive, negative, cognitive
What are the positive symptoms
Hallucinations
Thought disorders
Delusions
What are the negative symptoms
Flattened emotional response Reduction of speech Lack of initiative and persistence Anhedonia Social withdrawal
What are the cognitive symptoms?
Difficulty in sustaining attention Low psychomotor speed Deficits in learning and memory Poor abstract thinking Poor problem solving
Is schizophrenia inheritable
Yes partly, if you are a child of two schizophrenic parents or have an identical twin with schizophrenia then you have roughly a 50% of getting it
Chlorpromazine
Diminishes positive symptoms (it is a dopamine antagonist)
Can schizophrenia cause physical damage to the brain?
Yes it can cause the ventricles in the brain to widen
How is pregnancy linked to schizophrenia?
Viral infection in the 2nd trimester of pregnancy has been linked to schizophrenia
Schizophrenia and minor physical variations
Schizophrenia is related to minor physical abnormalities which shows it has a biological basis
Affective disorders
Depression- low energy levels, loss of appetite for food and sex
Mania- euphoria, delusional, poor attention span, self important
Bipolar disorder
Alternating periods of depression and mania
Unipolar disorder
Depression without mania or mania with depression (rare)
Monoamine oxide
Enzyme that destroys Monoamine in PoSN- serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine
Monoamine hypothesis
Depression is caused by low activity of Monoamine neurons
What is lithium used for
Used to treat mania. It causes side effects of diuresis, have tremors, weight gain and thirst
