Schizophrenia & Autism

Question 1

What is schizophrenia characterized with

Answer 1

Social withdrawal, disorganised thinking, abnormal speech, and an inability tonunderstand reality

Question 2

What percentage of the pop is affected by schizophrenia

Answer 2

1%

Question 3

3 categories of schizophrenia symptoms

Answer 3

Negative: absence of behaviour: ex. Social withdrawal or reduced emotional expression

Cognitive: disorganized and irrational thinking, deficits in learning and memory

Positive: presence of delusions and hallucinations

Normally appear in this order

Question 4

True or false: the causes of schizophrenia include genetic factors only

Answer 4

False. Includes environmental and genetic factors.

If both your parents have it, then you have 50% chance of getting it, 13% if just one parent

Environmental factors include many different things like mother’s nutrition and stress during pregnancy, infections during pregnancy, birth month, being raised in a city (3-1), childhood trauma, social isolation, perinatal hypoxia (miss oxygen while being born)

Question 5

Whats the seasonality effect in schizophrenia?

Answer 5

A disproportionately large number of schizophrenic patients are born in february, march, april, and may

Question 6

True or false: concordance rate for schizophrenia is much higher for monochorionic twins (single placenta) than for di ça orionic twins (each with its own placenta)

Answer 6

True, and that suggests the prenatal environment is an important factor

Question 7

Do we see symptoms of schizophrenia in childhood?

Answer 7

Normally no, but we do see BEHAVIOURAL and ANATOMICAL evidence that indicates abnormal prenatal development. Signs like less sociability, deficient paychomotor, minir physical abnormalities show that something happened during brain development

Question 8

What are the drugs used to releive the positive symptoms of schizophrenia called

Answer 8

Antipsychotics or neuroleptics. They typically block dopamine D2 receptord

Question 9

The dopamine hypothesis

Answer 9

Excessive dopamine D2 receptor activity, particularly in the nucleus accumbens (striatum), underlies the positive symptoms of schizophrenia

Question 10

What do we think the negative symptoms of schizophrenia are caused by?

Answer 10

Hypofrontality: decreased activity of the frontal lobes (no enough activity of local dopamine D1 receptors)

Question 11

What is clozapine

Answer 11

First of atypical antipsychotic medications found to decrease dopamine levels in the striatum and increase dopamine levels in the prefrontal cortex. Blocks dopamine D2 and serotonin 2A receptors

Question 12

What are atypical antipsychotic medications

Answer 12

Recently developed medications which aim to reduce both the positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia.

Question 13

Aripiprazole

Answer 13

An atypical antipsychotic. Acts as partial agonist (activates it less than normal ligand does) at the dopamine D2 and D3 receptors.

Partial agonist can act as an agonist in regions where concentration of normal ligand is low and as antagonist in regions of hihh concentrations. So it can reduce activity of dopamine in striatum but boost it in the prefrontal cortex

Question 14

Autistic sprectrum disorder

Answer 14

Wide range of developmental disorders that are characterized by troubles with social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior

Question 15

Percentage of pop with autism

Answer 15

1%

Question 16

Autism is caused by genetic factors only

Answer 16

No, environmental and genetic factors

Heritability around 70% for autism but 90% for autism sprectrum disorder. Many cases linked to spontaneous rare gene mutations

Question 17

Describe mild forms of autism

Answer 17

Often called asperger’s syndrome. Deficient or absent social interactions, repetitive and stereotypes behaviors along with obsessional interest in narrow subjects

Question 18

Describe male/female ratio in autism

Answer 18

More common in males
4:1
2:1 for cases with intellectual disability
7:1 for cases with high-functioning autism

Heterogametic sex (in mammal, males XY) shows slighly more variability on all kinds of traits. When you have two copies of a gene (female XX) you have better chance of having a working one. Lack of clear genetic instructions in males because they have just one copy

Question 19

What is the level of activity in fusiform face area of autistic adults

Answer 19

Not much level of activity.

Task in look at picture of faces, normally a lot of activity but not in people with autism

Question 20

What are exemples of meds given to people with autism?

Answer 20

Autism is a broad category, so we want to know more specificly what the person is struggling with

Anticonvulsants (⬆️GABA receptor activity): calm the brain down

Antidepressants (⬆️serotonin receptor activity): stabilize mood

Antipsychotics (⬇️dopamine receptor activity): calm people down

Stimulants (⬆️ dopamine receptor activity): for adhd