Schizophrenia & Autism Flashcards
What is schizophrenia characterized with
Social withdrawal, disorganised thinking, abnormal speech, and an inability tonunderstand reality
What percentage of the pop is affected by schizophrenia
1%
3 categories of schizophrenia symptoms
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
True or false: the causes of schizophrenia include genetic factors only
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)
Whats the seasonality effect in schizophrenia?
A disproportionately large number of schizophrenic patients are born in february, march, april, and may
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)
True, and that suggests the prenatal environment is an important factor
Do we see symptoms of schizophrenia in childhood?
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
What are the drugs used to releive the positive symptoms of schizophrenia called
Antipsychotics or neuroleptics. They typically block dopamine D2 receptord
The dopamine hypothesis
Excessive dopamine D2 receptor activity, particularly in the nucleus accumbens (striatum), underlies the positive symptoms of schizophrenia
What do we think the negative symptoms of schizophrenia are caused by?
Hypofrontality: decreased activity of the frontal lobes (no enough activity of local dopamine D1 receptors)
What is clozapine
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
What are atypical antipsychotic medications
Recently developed medications which aim to reduce both the positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia.
Aripiprazole
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
Autistic sprectrum disorder
Wide range of developmental disorders that are characterized by troubles with social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior
Percentage of pop with autism
1%
Autism is caused by genetic factors only
No, environmental and genetic factors
Heritability around 70% for autism but 90% for autism sprectrum disorder. Many cases linked to spontaneous rare gene mutations
Describe mild forms of autism
Often called asperger’s syndrome. Deficient or absent social interactions, repetitive and stereotypes behaviors along with obsessional interest in narrow subjects
Describe male/female ratio in autism
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
What is the level of activity in fusiform face area of autistic adults
Not much level of activity.
Task in look at picture of faces, normally a lot of activity but not in people with autism
What are exemples of meds given to people with autism?
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
