Schizophrenia Flashcards
Positive symptoms
Include delusions, hallucinations, and disorganized behaviour
Negative symptoms
Include diminished emotional expression and avolition
Cognitive deficits
Include impairments in attention, memory, and executive functions
Dopamine hypothesis
Disturbances in mesocortical dopaminergic pathway explain cognitive impairments
Glutamate
Main excitatory neurotransmitter; dysfunction leads to schizophrenia symptoms
Neuroanatomical differences
Include reduced brain weight, enlarged ventricles, and abnormal cellular structure
Grey matter loss
Chronic SZ patients show reduced grey matter in specific brain regions
Working memory
Impaired in schizophrenia, linked to proactive control and DLPFC
Episodic memory
Impaired in schizophrenia, related to DLPFC and hippocampus
(DLPFC)
dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
Processing speed
Impaired in schizophrenia, linked to white matter integrity
Dual mechanisms of control
Concept by Braver et al. involving proactive and reactive control
Relational memory
More impaired than item memory in schizophrenia
Difficulty in reordering items in memory, linked to deficits in schizophrenia
associations between objects i.e names and faces
Recollection
Remembering where exactly an item was seen/heard
Effort-based decision making in SZ
Atypical in schizophrenia, linked to motivational impairments
Motivational impairments
Affect social and occupational functioning in schizophrenia
Effort-Based Decision-Making What is it?
Process involving evaluating reward, effort, and motivation
Ventral Striatum
Brain structure linked to reward processing
Proactive Control
Ability to maintain goal-relevant information in memory
e.g. when we know what is relevant in a task, we can focus our attention on the task-relevant features
Glutamate Levels
Overall reduction in chronic SZ patients, predicted in Moghaddam & Javitt’s model
Glutathione
Antioxidant closely related to glutamate, reduced in individuals with schizophrenia
Neurometabolite Changes
Range of neurotransmitter systems involved in SZ, suggesting fewer white matter connections and cells
Reactive Control
Adjustments made when goals are not met, associated with cognitive control loop
