Brainscape's Knowledge GenomeTM

Browse over 1 million classes created by top students, professors, publishers, and experts.


See full index

ALevel Psych - Unit 3 > Schizophrenia > Flashcards

Schizophrenia Flashcards

You may prefer our related Brainscape-certified flashcards:
Psychology 101 flashcards GRE® Psychology flashcards
1
Q

How many people experience Schizophrenia?

A

1 in 100
Affects men and women equally

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
2
Q

What systems are used to diagnose mental disorders in the UK and USA?

A

UK - ICD 10
USA - DSM IV

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
3
Q

Give the differences between diagnoses from the DSM and ICD

A

DSM IV - emphasises social dysfunction and withdraw. Differences between schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder.

ICD 10 - emphasises positive symptoms, less on social and cultural factors.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
4
Q

Describe lack of insight in terms of schizophrenia diagnosis

A

Patients struggle to accept their diagnosis
Refuse medication
Often leads to relapse

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
5
Q

What is stigma?

A

A negative mark or label
Szasz - diagnosis gives a label that you are different and should be punished.
Others believe diagnosis can cause new symptoms e.g. withdraw

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
6
Q

Why do people question whether schizophrenia exists?

A

Shares symptoms with schizoaffective disorder and bipolar disorder
People should be treated according to individual symptoms
Symptoms can be a result of medication

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
7
Q

What are positive and negative symptoms

A

Positive - in addition to “normal” behaviour
Negative - behaviours “missing” from the norm

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
8
Q

What are the positive symptoms of schizophrenia?

A

Hallucinations
Delusion
Disordered thinking

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
9
Q

What are hallucinations?

A

Perceptions that are not real.
Auditory and visual
20% experience tactile
Formication - feeling spiders/insects under the skin

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
10
Q

What are delusions?

A

Beliefs that are not real
Persecution - others mean you harm
Grandiosity - you are special/powerful (e.g. famous or chosen by God)

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
11
Q

What is disordered thinking?

A

Cannot focus, jump from topic to topic
Clang associations - grouping words by sound, not meaning
Word salad - confused language with no structure
Thought insertion/extraction - thoughts placed in/removed from their heads by others

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
12
Q

What are the negative symptoms of schizophrenia?

A

Alogia
Avolition
Anhedonia
Flatness of effect
Catatonia

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
13
Q

What is alogia?

A

Poverty of speech
difficult to give even short answers

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
14
Q

What is avolition?

A

Indifference to surroundings
No motivation
Lack of goal directed behaviour
Leads to withdraw

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
15
Q

What is Anhedonia?

A

Doesn’t react appropriately to pleasurable experiences

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
16
Q

What is flatness of effect?

A

Appears to have no emotion
No inflection/expression of emotion in voice (monotone)
Little or no facial expressions

17
Q

What is catatonia?

A

Fast, repetitive movements, exaggerated gestures, echopraxia (mimicking movements)
OR
Little or no movement

18
Q

What is the dopamine hypothesis?

A

schizophrenia caused by high levels of dopamine.
Griffiths (1968) induced psychosis in non-schizophrenics with dextro-amphetamine.

19
Q

Evaluate the dopamine hypothesis

A

Only looks at positive symptoms.
Treatments that reduce dopamine don’t effect negative symptoms.
Farde (1990) not all schizophrenics have raised levels of dopamine.
Multiple dopamine receptors - focus shifted to receptors over dopamine itself.

20
Q

Dopamine receptors and schizophrenia

A

Found in the cerebral cortex and limbic system.
Seeman and Lee (1975) impact of anti-psychotic medication on D2 receptors D2 found mostly in the limbic system.

21
Q

The limbic system

A

Mesolimbic pathway
- carries signals from the ventral tegmental area to the nucleus accumbens.
- increased dopamine causes positive symptoms.
Mesocortical pathway
- carries signals from the ventral tegmental area to the frontal lobe.
-A lack of dopamine causes negative symptoms.

22
Q

Other theories to evaluate the dopamine hypothesis

A

Dopamine caused by genes
Metabolites
Serotonin
Cause and effect of dopamine

23
Q

Genetics cause the dopamine hypothesis

A

Gottesman (1991) cousins, grandchildren, parents, siblings, identical and non identical twins.
As genetic similarity increased so did the probability that both people would have schizophrenia.
Difficult to separate genetic and environmental influence - look at adoption studies to get around this

24
Q

Metabolites and schizophrenia

A

Dopamine is metabolised (broken down) into HVA (homovallinic acid) found in cerebrospinal fluid
Only way to get this is through lumbar puncture (BIG NEEDLE!) - ethics of causing pain!
Can be inaccurate. Levels of HVA affected by diet, drug use & antipsychotic medication

25
Q

Serotonin and the dopamine hypothesis

A

Newer medications like Clozapine block D2 receptors AND serotonin receptor 5-HT2A.
Reduces positive AND negative symptoms
Suggests role of serotonin in schizophrenia

26
Q

Is dopamine a cause or effect of schizophrenia?

A

Increased dopamine levels could be a symptom of schizophrenia, not the cause
Crook (2000) PET scans can’t detect differences in dopamine activity for schizophrenic and non-schizophrenic brains

27
Q

Name the methods of Modification (Drug therapy)

A

1) Conventional Antipsychotics (chlorpromazine)
2) Atypical Antipsycotics (clozapine)

28
Q

What are the characteristics of conventional antipsychotics

A
  • older medication, developed in the 1950s
  • Blocks primarily the D2 receptors at the post synaptic membrane
  • decreases neural activity in the mesolimbic pathway reducing positive symptoms
  • lasts just over 24 hours
29
Q

What are the characteristics of atypical antipsychotics

A
  • Newer medication, developed in the 1990s
  • blocks fewer D2 receptors
  • Also blocks serotonin receptor 5-HT2A
  • lasts less than 24 hours and has fewer side effects
30
Q

What was Cole (1964) test results
(effectiveness of conventional antipsychotic medication)

A
  • we could treat mental disorders in the same way as medicine treats physical disorders.
  • he found that 75% who were given a conventional antipsychotic were considered to improved compared to 25% given a placebo
  • none of the patients given antipsychotic became worse
31
Q

Conventional Vs Atypical
(comparison between the two)

A
  • Atypical are considered more effective
  • Ravanic (2009) compared the effectiveness of clozapine (atypical), chlorpromazine (conventional) and haloperidol (conventional) in 325 schizophrenics.
  • He found that clozapine was the most effective as it had the fewest side effects as its considered to have a “fast off” bond with the D2 receptor sites meaning it spends less time blocking dopamine.
31
Q

Why is non-compliance in schizophrenia so frequent

A
  • this is because around 50% of individuals diagnosed lack the necessary insight into their own condition, meaning they are refusing to believe that they have a problem.
  • with paranoid delusions common in schizophrenia this can result in them believing the diagnosis and treatment is part of a wider conspiracy. As such they refuse to take their medication.
  • Rattenbacher found only full compliance in 54% of individuals with schizophrenia. The means, that in the real world antipsychotics are going to be less effective than in carefully controlled clinical studies.
  • usually once released from psychiatric hospitals, schizophrenics are usually assigned a key worker who will check up on them to make sure they are taking there medication, however the budget for these key workers are so small there isn’t enough of them causing patients to fall of the meds and relapse. this is the famous ‘revolving door’ of treatment were they are treated, stabilised, released, stop taking their medication, return to the hospital.
31
Q

Side effects of medication.

A
  • affects both conventional and atypical
  • common side effects include; Parkinsonism (tremors, shuffling and instability) as well as tardive dyskinesia (involuntary movements of the head, lips and tongue)
  • less frequent in atypical however atypical can lead to potentially fatal low white blood cells which causes people who are on atypical antipsychotics to have to have regular blood tests.
32
Q

Enlarged Ventricles

A
  • ventricles are cavities in the brain that produce and transport cerebrospinal fluid
  • this fluid provides buoyancy (protection) and chemical stability (transports nutrients and removes waste products)
  • the ventricles produce around 500ml of CSF each day.
  • Andreason (1988) studied MRI scans and found that people with schizophrenia have ventricles 20% to 50% larger than the controls.
  • there are 4 Ventricals
33
Q

What are the 4 ventricles

A
  • Left and right lateral ventricles, situated in the frontal, occipital and temporal lobes.
  • Third ventricle situated between the left and right thalamus.
  • Fourth ventricle situated between the pons and Medulla oblongata.
34
Q

What is cortical atrophy?

A
  • its primarily the loss of neurone from the cerebral cortex (outer layer of the brain)
  • atrophy therefore can often make the brain appear to shrink; widening the grooves in the cerebral cortex.
    this type of damage appears In the brains of 20% to 35% of chronic schizophrenics.
  • Antonio Vita (1988) used CAT scans to assess 124 individuals with schizophrenia and 45 controls without symptoms. They showed that 33% of individuals with schizophrenia showed moderate to severe atrophy. The atrophy was also found to be related to enlarged ventricles.
35
Q

Reversed cerebral asymmetry

A
  • in most individuals without schizophrenia, the left hemisphere is slightly larger than the right. this is related to the fact that much of the processing of language is located in the left hemisphere. As well as around 90% of the population are right handed.
  • However, in some individuals with schizophrenia, this is reversed, with the right hemisphere being larger than the left hemisphere.
  • these differences may explain why deficients in speech, such as alogia, are common in individuals with schizophrenia.

ALevel Psych - Unit 3 (7 decks)

Brainscape helps you reach your goals faster, through stronger study habits.
© 2024 Bold Learning Solutions. Terms and Conditions