Schizophrenia Flashcards
Flaum
Found enlarged ventricles, superior temporal lobes and abnormalities in the hippocampus and thalamus in the brains of SZ patients
Brown
Found enlarged ventricles and decreased brain weight in schizophrenic patients
Buschbaum
Found abnormalities in the hippocampus, pre-frontal cortex, frontal lobe, basal ganglia and amygdala (in the temporal lobe) in brains of SZ patients
Castner
Monkeys
- Foetal, exposed to brain damaging x-rays
- SZ symptoms developed during puberty
L-Dopa
Given to those with Parkinson’s disease
Increases dopamine levels as those with Parkinson’s have lower levels
Too large a dose can cause SZ symptoms
Anti-psychotics
Decreases dopamine levels in schizophrenics
Effectively removes symptoms
Amphetamines
Increase dopamine levels in Brain
Causes SZ like symptoms
Haracz
Post-mortems
Those who were given anti-psychotics had increased levels of dopamine whilst those who hadn’t had normal levels of dopamine
Over-compensating neurones as don’t know how to cope with sudden deficiency
Copolov and Crook
Neuroimaging e.g. PET scans more accurate than post mortems
No evidence for altered dopamine levels in SZ patients
Torrey and Peterson
Proposed viral hypothesis
More likely to be SZ if born in early spring
Mother has flu in second trimester causing an infection leading to drain damage in baby
Mednick
Increase of SZ patients born in the Helsinki flu epidemic
Takei
More SZ patients born in flu epidemics
Comer
Fingerprints develop during second trimester
More fingerprint abnormalities in SZ patients than control group
Gottesman
Conducted a study producing concordance rates for the likelihood of developing SZ depending upon genetic links to SZ
1% general population
17% DZ twins
48% MZ twins
Joseph
Twin studies
MZ twins - 40% concordance rate
DZ twins - 7.4% concordance rate
Tienari
164 adoptees with SZ mothers - 6.7% developed SZ
197 adoptees with non-SZ mothers - 2% developed SZ
Hallucinations
Distorted perceptions arising from any one of the senses
Auditory or visual
Delusions
Bizarre beliefs that seem real to the SZ patient, but are not real
Paranoid delusions
Bizarre belief that you are being followed e.g. Stalked that increase anxiety levels
Delusions of grandeur
Belief you are better than those around you e.g. Jesus
Affective flattening
Lack of interest in the self, blunt emotions
Alogia
Poverty of speech
Avolition
Lack of motivation
Disordered thinking
Confused or muddled thoughts, lack of concentration