12 - 5 Flashcards
Mania
is an extended state of intense, wild elation (happiness)
People experiencing mania feel intense happiness, power, invulnerability, and energy.
They may become involved in wild schemes, believing they will succeed at anything they attempt.
Bipolar disorder
is a disorder in which a person alternates
between periods of euphoric feelings of mania and periods of depression.
The swings between highs and lows may occur a few days apart or may alternate over a period of years.
Periods of depression are usually longer
than periods of mania.
Most evidence suggests that bipolar disorders are caused
primarily by biological factors.
For instance, bipolar disorders clearly run in some families, pointing to a genetic cause.
Substance use raises the risk of developing
both bipolar disorders and psychotic disorders.
substance use cannot cause bipolar disorders in individuals without a hereditary vulnerability, but it may trigger the development of the disorder in individuals that carry the genetics for it, who may otherwise not have ever manifested symptoms.
substance use is associated with worse
quality of life outcomes and increased psychosis in individuals with bipolar disorders.
Schizophrenia
is a class of disorders in which severe distortion of reality occurs.
Thinking, perception, and emotion may deteriorate; there may be a withdrawal from social interaction; and there may be displays of bizarre behaviour.
Symptoms displayed by persons with schizophrenia may
vary considerably over time, and people with schizophrenia show significant differences
in the pattern of their symptoms even when they are labeled with the same diagnostic category.
Characteristics of schizophrenia are
- Decline from a previous level of functioning
- Disturbances of thought and language:
- Delusion
- Perceptual disorders
- Emotional disturbances
- Withdrawal
Decline from a previous level of functioning
no longer carry out activities they were once able to do.
Disturbances of thought and language:
Peculiar (strange) use of logic and language
Their thinking often does not make sense, and their information processing is often faulty
They may not follow conventional linguistic rules.
Delusion
Firmly hold, unshakable beliefs that have no basis in reality.
Feelings of being controlled by someone else, or feelings of persecuted by others
Most individuals with psychotic disorders are not violent;
violence is more closely associated with
substance use disorders than any other class of disorder.
Perceptual disorders:
May not perceive the world as most other people do.
Hallucinations (the experience of perceiving things that do not actually exist).
Emotional disturbances:
May sometimes show a bland lack of emotion in
which even the most dramatic events produce little or no emotional response.
ex. they may display emotion that is inappropriate to a situation.
Withdrawal
They tend to have little interest in others.
They tend not to socialize or hold real conversations with others, although they may talk at another person.
In the most extreme cases they do not even acknowledge the presence of other people,
appearing to be in their own isolated world.
onset of schizophrenia occurs in
early adulthood
Process schizophrenia
Symptoms develop slowly and subtly.
There may be a gradual withdrawal from the world, excessive daydreaming, and a
blunting of emotion, until eventually the disorder reaches the point where others
cannot overlook it.
More difficult to treat
Reactive schizophrenia
Onset of symptoms is sudden and
conspicuous (visiable).
More responsive to treatment.
DSM-5 classifies the symptoms of schizophrenia into two types
- Positive-symptom schizophrenia:
- Negative-symptom schizophrenia:
Positive-symptom schizophrenia:
Positive symptoms are dominant
Positive symptoms include delusions, hallucinations, and emotional extremes.
Negative-symptom schizophrenia:
Negative symptoms are dominant
Negative symptoms include loss of normal functioning, withdrawal, and blunted emotional reactions
distinction between positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia is important
because it suggests that two different
kinds of causes might trigger schizophrenia.
And it has implications for predicting treatment outcomes.
Heredity
(biological factors)
Schizophrenia is more common in some families than in others.
However, there are other factors
involved since twin studies show
the chance of the other identical
twin having schizophrenia is just
under 50%, since identical twins
share the same genetic makeup.
epigenetics are involved
in schizophrenia.
looks at the way in which gene expressions are
expressed and influenced by the environment.
genes by themselves do not lead a person to display schizophrenia.
Instead, they are affected by the environment.
And genes can be altered in a way that then passes on the behaviour to future generations.
Dopamine hypothesis
Biochemical imbalance
suggests that schizophrenia occurs when
there is excess activity in those areas of the brain that use dopamine as a
neurotransmitter.
discovery that drugs that block
dopamine action in brain pathways can be highly effective in reducing the
symptoms of schizophrenia.
glutamate
Other research suggests that glutamate, another neurotransmitter, may be a major contributor to the disorder.
Structural abnormalities
(causes of Schizophrenia)
result of exposure to a virus during prenatal development
Research shows abnormalities in the neural circuits of the cortex and limbic systems of individuals with schizophrenia.
People with schizophrenia often have
unusually low activity in the brain’s frontal
lobes (involved with emotional regulation,
insight, and the evaluation of sensory
stimuli).
Emotional and communication patterns of the families of people with schizophrenia
suggest that schizophrenia results from high levels of expressed emotion (an interaction style characterized by criticism, hostility, and emotional intrusiveness by family members).
Others suggest that **faulty communication patterns ** lie at the heart of schizophrenia.
Exposure to street drugs is also associated with an increased risk of schizophrenia.
use of hallucinogenic and stimulant drugs is associated with an increased risk for
schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, with cannabis, cocaine, LSD, and methamphetamine conferring particularly high risks.
Amount of use, as well as age of use, is significant, with younger drug users being at higher risk for onset of schizophrenia
The predisposition model of schizophrenia:
Individuals may inherit a predisposition or an inborn sensitivity to schizophrenia that makes them particularly vulnerable to stressful factors in the environment, such as social rejection or dysfunctional family
communication patterns.
The stressors may vary, but if they are strong enough and are coupled with a genetic predisposition, the result will be the onset of schizophrenia.
Simialry A strong genetic predisposition may
lead to the onset of schizophrenia even when the environmental stressors are relatively weak.
