Chapter 7 - Psychotic disorders

Question 1

Positive symptoms

Answer 1

In schizophrenia, hallucinations, delusions, and disorganisation in thought and behaviour.

Question 2

Thought disorder

Answer 2

State of highly disorganised thinking (also known as formal thought disorder of a loosening of associations) characteristic of individuals with schizophrenia.

Question 3

Motor disturbance

Answer 3

Disturbance of bodily movement.

Question 4

Negative symptoms

Answer 4

In schizophrenia, deficits in functioning such as affective flattening, alogia and avolition.

Question 5

Avolition

Answer 5

Inability to initiate or persist with important activities; negative symptom of schizophrenia.

Question 6

Affective flattening

Answer 6

Severe reduction or complete absence of affective (emotional) responses to the environment; negative symptoms of schizophrenia.

Question 7

Alogia

Answer 7

Deficiency in the quantity of speech; negative symptom of schizophrenia.

Question 8

Hallucination

Answer 8

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).

Question 9

Auditory hallucination

Answer 9

Perception of a sound that is not real (such as hearing a voice when alone).

Question 10

Hallucinogens

Answer 10

Substances including LSD and MDMA (i.e., ‘ecstasy’) that can produce perceptual distortions and illusions.

Question 11

Delusion

Answer 11

Psychotic symptom entailing a strongly held belief that is not consistent with what almost everyone else believes and despite obvious proof to the contrary.

Question 12

Paranoid delusion

Answer 12

False belief of delusional intensity that someone is seeking to harm the individual or his/her interests.

Question 13

Delusion of reference

Answer 13

False belief strongly held by an individual that environmental stimuli have a particular significance for him/her.

Question 14

Somatic delusion

Answer 14

False belief of delusional intensity regarding the appearance or functioning of one’s body.

Question 15

Grandiose delusion

Answer 15

False belief of delusional intensity about the self including ideas of inflated worth, power, knowledge, ability, identity or relationships with well-known figures.

Question 16

Catatonic behaviour

Answer 16

Marked motor abnormalities such as adopting unusual postures or engaging in repetitive movements.

Question 17

Depression

Answer 17

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.

Question 18

Antipsychotic medications

Answer 18

Drugs used to treat psychotic symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations.

Question 19

Cannabis

Answer 19

Substance that can produce feelings of wellbeing, perceptual distortions and paranoid thinking.

Question 20

Paranoia

Answer 20

State characterised by false beliefs that one is being harassed persecuted or unfairly treated, which may reach delusional intensity.

Question 21

Schizophrenia

Answer 21

Psychotic disorder characterised by two or more of the following; delusions, hallucinations, disorganised speech, grossly disorganised or catatonic behaviour, and negative symptoms.

Question 22

Prodromal symptoms

Answer 22

In schizophrenia, milder symptoms prior to an acute phase of the disorder during which behaviours are unusual but not yet psychotic.

Question 23

Expressed emotions (EE)

Answer 23

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.

Question 24

Adoption study

Answer 24

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.

Question 25

Family study

Answer 25

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.

Question 26

Concordance rate

Answer 26

Probability that both members of a twin pair will develop the same disorder.

Question 27

Monozygotic twins

Answer 27

Identical twins who share 100 per cent of their genes because they developed from a single fertilised egg.

Question 28

Dizygotic twins

Answer 28

Non-identical twins who share with each other, 50 per cent of their genes because they developed from two separate fertilised eggs.

Question 29

Neurotransmitters

Answer 29

Biochemicals released from a sending neuron to a receiving neuron so as to transmit messages in the brain and nervous system.

Question 30

Enlarged ventricles

Answer 30

Fluid-filled spaces in the brain that are larger than normal and suggest a deterioration in brain tissue.

Question 31

Pre-frontal cortex

Answer 31

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.

Question 32

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)

Answer 32

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.

Question 33

Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis

Answer 33

Three components of the neuroendocrine system that work together in a feedback system interconnected with the brain’s limbic system and cerebral cortex.

Question 34

Pituitary

Answer 34

Major endocrine gland that produces the largest number of different hormones and controls the secretions of other endocrine glands.

Question 35

Tardive dyskinesia

Answer 35

Neurological disorder characterised by involuntary movements of the tongue, face, mouth or jaw, which may result from taking neuroleptic drugs.