Psychotic Disorders Flashcards
When is peak onset for schizophrenia?
Late adolescence and early adulthood
Precipitating events to schizophrenia may include psychosocial stressors, traumatic events, and/or drug and alcohol abuse. For example, _______ use increases risk of developing schizophrenia by at least 6x
Cannabis
Prodromal signs and symptoms may exist before symptoms of schizophrenia. What are some examples?
Schizoid or schizotypal personalities
Few close friends as adolescents
Minimal social activities
Genetic association of schizophrenia as evidenced by monozygotic vs. dizygotic twins
Monozygotic twins (100% shared genes) concordence rate with schizophrenia = 40-50%
Dizygotic twins (50% shared genes) concordence rate with schizophrenia = 10-15%
[genes don’t play a huge role!]
Meta-analysis of literature have found that _____ ____ _____ increase risk of schizophrenia by 1.5-2x, a greater effect than any common genetic variant
Early life complications (ELCs)
[aka potentially adverse events that occur during pregnancy and labor, at delivery, and early in neonatal life]
The interaction between genomic risk and ELCs is mainly driven by the _____ genome, and is relatively independent of gene-environment interactions related to parental genomes per se.
Genes highly and differentially expressed in the ________ drive the interaction between polygenic risk scores and early-life complications on schizophrenia risk
Fetal
Placenta
Prenatal exposure to _____ ______ during the first trimester of pregnancy appears to increase the risk of developing schizophrenia, making offsprine 7x more likely to develop it
Influenza virus
The Copenhagen perinatal cohort stated that maternal ______ during any time in pregnancy was associated with a 3x increased risk of schizophrenia in offspring by age 47
URI
The “revised dopamine hypothesis” proposes hyperactive dopamine transmission in the ______ areas and hypoactive dopamine transmission in the _________ in schizophrenia pts
Mesolimbic; prefrontal cortex
In addition to the mesolimbic brain areas in schizophrenic pts, dopamine dysregulation is also observed in brain regions including the _____ and _______, which are important for emotional processing
Amygdala; prefrontal cortex
PET-studies have identified differences in dopamine contents in the prefrontal cortex, cingulate cortex, and _________ between schizophrenia pts and neuropsychiatric healthy control subjects.
Hippocampus
[“In particular, the dopamine system in the hippocampus is OVERACTIVE in schizophrenia pts”]
In terms of hormonal roles in schizophrenia, there is evidence that people with schizophrenia experience both periods of heightened and decreased _____ secretion
Cortisol
One set of symptoms that define psychotic disorders is known as “positive” symptoms, aka those symptoms that indicate a better prognosis.
What are the “positive” symptoms?
Delusions
Hallucinations
Disorganized thinking (speech)
Grossly disorganized or abnormal motor behavior (including catatonia)
One set of symptoms that define psychotic disorders is known as “negative” symptoms, aka those symptoms that indicate a worse prognosis.
What are the “negative” symptoms?
Diminished emotional expression
Avolition
Alogia
Anhedonia
Asociality
Fixed beliefs that are not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence
Delusions
6 types of delusions
Persecutory
Grandiose
Referential
Erotomanic
Nihilistic
Somatic
Perceptions that occur without an external stimulus; may occur in any sensory modality
Hallucinations
_____ hallucinations are most common in schizophrenia
Auditory
[usually experienced as voices, whether familiar or unfamiliar; are perceived as distinct from individual’s own thoughts]
_______ hallucinations are those that occur while waking up
_______ hallucinations are those that occur while falling asleep
Hypnopompic
Hypnagogic
T/F: hypnagogic and/or hypnopompic hallucinations are highly indicative of psychosis
False
These types of hallucinations are NOT indicative of psychosis, but may indicate some other psychiatric issue; highly related to seizure activity
Types of disorganized thinking
Tangentiality (diverging from previous course)
Derailment or loose associations
Incoherence or “word salad”
Examples of grossly disorganized motor behavior include:
________ behavior = marked decrease in reactivity to the environment
_______ _______ = purposeless and excessive motor activity without obvious cause
Catatonic
Catatonic excitement
Types of disorganized motor behavior
Negativism (resistance to instructions)
Inappropriate or bizarre posture (waxy flexibility)
Mutism and stupor (a complete lack of verbal and motor responses)
Repeated stereotyped movements (staring, grimacing, mutism, and echoing of speech)
What 2 “negative” symptoms are particularly prominent in schizophrenia?
Diminished emotional expression — decreased eye contact, speech intonation (prosody), and movements of the hand, head, and face
Avolition — a decrease in motivated self-initiated purposeful activities
____ is a negative symptom manifested by diminished speech output
Alogia