Psychopathology Flashcards
Anxiety Disorders
triggered by both real and imagined things
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
Panic Disorder
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
continuous worry about many things, 6+ months
Hypervigilance: over-attentive to threats
- overactive amygdala; less inhibition from prefrontal cortex
Panic Disorder
Recurrent, unpredictable, unprovoked panic with somatic symptoms (shortness of breath, sweating, palpitations)
1 month of debilitating worry
over-interpreting physiological arousal as catastrophic
Phobias
intense irrational fear that is specific to an object or situation
leads to avoidance
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Obsessions:
-disturbing intrusive thought
-fear is often only about a thought vs OCD fear is concrete
Compulsions:
-repetitive actions or ritual in response to obsession
-checking stove, cleaning, symmetry
Consume 1+ hr of da and interfere with relationships
safety/closure signal from frontal lobe does not reach limbic system and basal ganglia
Major Depressive Disorder
symptoms: prolonged sadness, absence of pleasure (anhedonia), hopelessness; worthlessness; excessive self-blame
physical symptoms: abnormal sleep, concentration, appetite; slowed boy movements
often concurrent with GAD, which often begins first
most severe: with psychosis (hallucinations, delusions, paranoia)
Serotonin and Norepinephrine deficiency theory is incomplete
Bipolar Disorder
manic depression
Mania: euphoria, high energy, less sleep, grandiose projects, impulsive behaviors
sometimes with psychosis: delusions and paranoia
Schizophrenia (what its not, positive & negative symptoms, difference from other illnesses, physiological basis
nothing to do with being of two minds/personalities
positive symptoms:
- disorganized thought, speech; loose associations
- Hallucinations, most often auditory
- Delusions- persecution, grandeur, being controlled, paranoia
- grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior
Negative symptoms:
- Anhedonia; flat effect; social isolation; less movement, speech, appetite
often lacks insight into psychopathology
1-2 year slow onset, starting with disorganization
too much neural pruning of gray matter in adolescent development
-Enlarged lateral ventricles
-neuronal loss in hippocampus and prefrontal cortex
-glutamate theory-bock glutamate receptor in normal people induces positive and negative symptoms
-dopamine theory = too little in prefrontal cortex, negative symptoms
= too much in basal ganglia, positive symptoms
neural pruning
the process by which extra neurons and synaptic connections are eliminated in order to increase the efficiency of neuronal transmissions.
PTSD
triggered by traumatic experience (vs. anxiety disorder)
re-experiencing
hyper-arousal
avoidance
Personality disorders
Clusters: A- odd paranoid schizoid sxhizotypal B- Dramatic anti-social borderline narcissistic histrionic C-Anxious obsessive compulsive avoidant dependent
Alzheimer’s Disease
progressive dementia
genes: overactive that produce beta-amyloid
brain plumbing- less clearance of plaque
Pathological 4DP
Distress Dysfunction Danger Deviance Pervasive over time and different situations
Biological factors
Neurotransmission
Genetics
Brain circuit function
Psychological Factors
content of consciousness matters to outcomes
Social/Cultural Factors
How distress is expressed
How others respond to expresses symptoms
Culture Bound syndromes
DSM-5
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Categorical Approach: - purely descriptive of observable symptoms - symptom cluster ---> disorder -disorder---> disorder category
RDoC
Dimensional Approach (Research Domain Criteria) Starts with biological mechanisms underlying domains of psychopathology
Why is RDoC better than DSM-5?
DSM describes syndromes and distinct categories, and it guarantees reliability but not validity; same symptom can : arise from different causes respond to different treatment represent suffering differently produce different disease courses
Missing Heritability Paradox
high heritability of disorders, yet relativly few genes found
could be a result of:
many genes, each with tiny effect
genes with large effect but restricted to small subpopulation
Why are fraternal twins more similar in psycho pathology than non-twin siblings
prenatal or perinatal insults ie malnutrition, drugs, O2 deprivation in utero
biological predispositions
genes
prenatal or perinatal insults
injuries
sex differences
Psychological Predispositions
Prolonged stress
maladaptive negative thought patterns
Social Predispositions
unique environment- peers, random life events
variation in:
expected roles
what is considered deviant
amount/kind of distressis considered clinically significant
what is considered dysfunction
behaviors count as dangerous
Why do Mental Disorders Persist?
non-random mating
mismatch hypothesis
balancing selection hypothesis
mutation-selection balance hypothesis
non-random mating
people with mental disorder more likely to mate with others with mental disorder
mismatch hypothesis
adaptive advantage of phobias in an EEA dont match current dangers
balancing selection hpyothesis
a gene is advantageous in one context, harmful in another
mutation-selection balance hypothesis
brain requires many genes to function, having more genes means more likely to have mutations
(non-adaptationist theory)
Adaptiveness of Anxiey
motivator when inaction would have negative consequences
Adaptiveness of Depression
slow-down, blame self and think critically to solve goals; become risk averse
Adaptiveness of Mild PTSD-like symptoms
avoid being re-traumatized
Treatments
medications
brain stimulation for medication resistant illnesses
psychotherapy
Psychotherapy
top-down method of rewiring neural circuitry that create thoughts/feelings
yes it works but better with medication
common support, motivation, hope that all types provide could explain equal effectiveness
(increase expectation of improvement is key)
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
therapist as literary critic/shaman
-find unconscious conflicts, make them conscious, resolve them
Cognitive Psychotherapy
therapist as professor
- become aware of trigger->irrational thought->feeling
- replace withmore adaptive reasoning
- homework
Behavioral Psychotherapy
therapist as trainer
- extinguish maladaptive learned associations between cues and thoughts
- condition adaptive associations by exposure to new environmental stimuli and rewarding healthy behavior
