Chapter 7 - Psychotic disorders Flashcards
Positive symptoms
In schizophrenia, hallucinations, delusions, and disorganisation in thought and behaviour.
Thought disorder
State of highly disorganised thinking (also known as formal thought disorder of a loosening of associations) characteristic of individuals with schizophrenia.
Motor disturbance
Disturbance of bodily movement.
Negative symptoms
In schizophrenia, deficits in functioning such as affective flattening, alogia and avolition.
Avolition
Inability to initiate or persist with important activities; negative symptom of schizophrenia.
Affective flattening
Severe reduction or complete absence of affective (emotional) responses to the environment; negative symptoms of schizophrenia.
Alogia
Deficiency in the quantity of speech; negative symptom of schizophrenia.
Hallucination
Psychotic symptom entailing perceptual experiences that are not real, which can occur in any sensory modality (e.g., the false perception of sound or sight).
Auditory hallucination
Perception of a sound that is not real (such as hearing a voice when alone).
Hallucinogens
Substances including LSD and MDMA (i.e., ‘ecstasy’) that can produce perceptual distortions and illusions.
Delusion
Psychotic symptom entailing a strongly held belief that is not consistent with what almost everyone else believes and despite obvious proof to the contrary.
Paranoid delusion
False belief of delusional intensity that someone is seeking to harm the individual or his/her interests.
Delusion of reference
False belief strongly held by an individual that environmental stimuli have a particular significance for him/her.
Somatic delusion
False belief of delusional intensity regarding the appearance or functioning of one’s body.
Grandiose delusion
False belief of delusional intensity about the self including ideas of inflated worth, power, knowledge, ability, identity or relationships with well-known figures.
Catatonic behaviour
Marked motor abnormalities such as adopting unusual postures or engaging in repetitive movements.
Depression
State marked by a sad mood and/or loss of interest in one’s usual activities, as well as feelings of hopelessness, suicidal ideation, psychomotor agitation or retardation, appetite and sleep disturbances, fatigue, poor concentration and a sense of worthlessness.
Antipsychotic medications
Drugs used to treat psychotic symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations.
Cannabis
Substance that can produce feelings of wellbeing, perceptual distortions and paranoid thinking.
Paranoia
State characterised by false beliefs that one is being harassed persecuted or unfairly treated, which may reach delusional intensity.
Schizophrenia
Psychotic disorder characterised by two or more of the following; delusions, hallucinations, disorganised speech, grossly disorganised or catatonic behaviour, and negative symptoms.
Prodromal symptoms
In schizophrenia, milder symptoms prior to an acute phase of the disorder during which behaviours are unusual but not yet psychotic.
Expressed emotions (EE)
Family interaction style in which family members are overly protective and self-sacrificing towards the person with a psychological disorder while also expressing high levels of criticism and hostility; this may contribute to the person’s relapse.
Adoption study
Study of the heritability of a disorder by finding adopted people with a disorder and then determining the prevalence of the disorder among their biological and adoptive relatives in order to separate contributing genetic factors from environmental factors.
Family study
Study of the heritability of a disorder involving identifying people with a particular disorder and people without the disorder and then determining the disorder’s frequency within each person’s family.
Concordance rate
Probability that both members of a twin pair will develop the same disorder.
Monozygotic twins
Identical twins who share 100 per cent of their genes because they developed from a single fertilised egg.
Dizygotic twins
Non-identical twins who share with each other, 50 per cent of their genes because they developed from two separate fertilised eggs.
Neurotransmitters
Biochemicals released from a sending neuron to a receiving neuron so as to transmit messages in the brain and nervous system.
Enlarged ventricles
Fluid-filled spaces in the brain that are larger than normal and suggest a deterioration in brain tissue.
Pre-frontal cortex
Region at the front of the brain important in language, emotional expression, the planning and production of new ideas, and the mediation of social interactions.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
Method of measuring both brain structure and function through the construction of a magnetic field that affects hydrogen atoms in the brain, emitting signals that a computer then records and uses to produce a three-dimensional image of the brain.
Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis
Three components of the neuroendocrine system that work together in a feedback system interconnected with the brain’s limbic system and cerebral cortex.
Pituitary
Major endocrine gland that produces the largest number of different hormones and controls the secretions of other endocrine glands.
Tardive dyskinesia
Neurological disorder characterised by involuntary movements of the tongue, face, mouth or jaw, which may result from taking neuroleptic drugs.
