Lecture 20 (schizophrenia and autism)

Question 1

When in life do schizophrenia tend to appear?

Answer 1

In adolescence and young adulthood.

Question 2

The prevalence of schizophrenia?

Answer 2

1 %

Question 3

Which kind of hallucinations is found?

Answer 3

Mostly auditory.

Question 4

The major symptoms of schizophrenia?

Answer 4

Auditory hallucinations, highly personalized delusions (false belief), changes in affect and cognitive changes.

Question 5

Is there a genetic component?

Answer 5

Yes, a strong one.

Question 6

What is the word for when monozygotic twins both get the disease?

Answer 6

They’re described as being concordant for this trait.

Question 7

Stress increases or decreases the likelihood of the disorder?

Answer 7

Increases.

Question 8

The genes that seem to increase the risk of schizophrenia are known to be involved in?

Answer 8

Synapse rearrangement.

Question 9

Which part of the brain is enlarged in people with schizophrenia?

Answer 9

The cerebral ventricles, especially the lateral ventricles.

Question 10

The relation between more-enlarged ventricles and the response to antipsychotic drugs?

Answer 10

Patients with more-enlarged ventricles tend to show poorer response to antipsychotic drugs.

Question 11

What have postmortem studies of patients with schizophrenia shown in their brain?

Answer 11

abnormalities in several parts of the limbic system, including the hippocampus, amygdala, and parahippocampal regions (these systems are close to the lateral ventricles. And because they’re enlarged, they have to take some space from other structures).

Question 12

Which surgery did the drug chlorpromazine replace?

Answer 12

Lobotomy; a surgical seperation of a portion of the frontal lobes from the rest of the brain.

Question 13

What do antipsychotics do?

Answer 13

they block postsynaptic dopamine receptors, particularly dopamine D2 receptors.

Question 14

What is the dopamine hypothesis in people with schizophrenia?

Answer 14

people with schizophrenia suffer from an excess of either dopamine release or dopamine receptors (too much dopamine).

Question 15

Typical antipsychotics?

Answer 15

D2 receptor antagonists.

Question 16

Atypical antipsychotics?

Answer 16

don’t have the selective high affinity for dopamine receptors that is the hallmark of the typical antipsychotics, and they feature high affinity for other types of receptors.

Question 17

What is the glutamate hypothesis?

Answer 17

schizophrenia results from an under activation of glutamate receptors.

Question 18

Positive symptoms (in general)?

Answer 18

symptoms that have been gained with the disease.

Question 19

Negative symptoms?

Answer 19

behavioral functions that have been lost due to the disease.

Question 20

The three diagnosis criteria in people with autism

Answer 20

1. Problems with communication
2. deviation in social play
3. inflexibility, repetitive behavior, and few interests.

The symptoms have to be there before the age of 3.

Question 21

How is “Theory of Mind” trying to explain autism?

Answer 21

That autism is due to a decreased theory of mind or mentalizing.
But can’t explain inflexibility or sensory overload.

Question 22

Do people with autism focus on the whole or parts of the whole?

Answer 22

Parts of the whole (detail oriented).

Question 23

People with autism seem to be better in infancy to?

Answer 23

Visual search than normal people

Question 24

What medicament have they tried to treat people with autism with? (But not working)

Answer 24

Oxytocin

Question 25

People who developed a psychosis had reduced volume where?

Answer 25

Cortical volume in the associative and limbic areas.

Question 26

Which memory type do both skizophrenia and autism people have problems with?

Answer 26

Semantic

Question 27

Which memory type is more incoherent in people with autism and schizophrenia?

Answer 27

Autobiographic

Question 28

What can explain why autism are more sensitive to noise?

Answer 28

The prediction error theory.