Schizophrenia

Question 1

What is it?

Answer 1

• Eugene Bleuler (1911): fragmenting of the mind

Question 2

It is a common misconception of?

Answer 2

• Dis-associative Identity Disorder

Question 3

Type I: Positive Symptoms?

Answer 3

Present, but should not be:

1) Hallucinations
2) Delusions
3) Disorganized Language: neologisms and rhyming
4) Impulsive
5) Social or occupational dysfunction

Question 4

Type II: Negative Symptoms?

Answer 4

Missing from behavior:

1) Loss of fluency of ideas/language
2) Affective blunting
3) Avolition
4) Anhedonia
5) Attentional impairments

Question 5

Risk factors: genetic or environmental?

Answer 5

• Age of onset is teens and early 20s (slow emergence)
• No single gene is implicated
• Paternal age
• Prenatal malnutrition or stress (wintery months and viral load)
• Urban risk factor (3x)
• Latitude (Vitamin D deficiency)

Question 6

What is happening within the brain?

Answer 6

Excessive neural pruning:

• Addition pruning on top of compromise
• Caudal to rostral through cortex

Question 7

What are the different behavioral/cognitive issues that arise following excessive pruning?

Answer 7

• Parietal: visual/spatial
• Medial/temporal: memory (thinner parahippocampal gyri)
• Prefrontal cortex: reduced neural count; abnormal cellular structure (hippocampus too)
• Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex: hypofrontality
• Enlarged ventricles
• Oculomotor dysfunctions
• Weigh less
• NT dysfunction

Question 8

What are the NT dysfunctions?

Answer 8

• Dopaminergic function: anti-psychotics
• Glutamate and NMDA receptors
• GABA and GABA binding sites