Week 11 Chapter 9 Schizophrenia Revision Caff Flashcards
To provide a brief revision summary of Schizophrenia covered in Chapter 9, week 11
What do the symptoms of schizophrenia involve?
- Disturbances in several areas including:
- thought, perception, & attention
- Motor behaviour
- emotion
- life functioning
How are the symptoms of schizophrenia most often divided?
Positive Symptoms: *excesses & distortions
-delusions & hallucinations
Negative Symptoms: *behavioural deficits
-avolition, asociality, anhedonia, blunted affect, alogia
Disorganised Symptoms:
*disorganised speech & behaviour
Motor Symptoms: *Catatonia
What is the evidence for genetic transmission of schizophrenia?
evidence is impressive & comes from:
*Family & twin studies
*adoption studies
Having a parent with schizophrenia (coupled with childhood problems) is strongly associated with developing the disorder in early adulthood
Which genes have been associated with the development of schizophrenia?
- DTNBP1, NGR1, COMT, BDNF
- Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have found rare genetic mutations called copy number variations (CNV’s) to be associated with schizophrenia
What is the evidence for neurotransmitters in the development of schizophrenia?
- Increased sensitivity of dopamine receptors in the brain is associated to the positive symptoms of schizophrenia (delusions & hallucinations)
- the negative symptoms are thought to be related to Dopamine underactivity in the prefrontal cortex *Other neurotransmitters such as serotonin, glutamate, & GABA, are also involved
In what way are the brains of people with schizophrenia often different to people without schizophrenia?
People with schizophrenia often have:
- enlarged ventricles
- problems with the prefrontal cortex
- problems with the temporal cortex & surrounding regions
What is thought to be the cause of some of these structural abnormalities?
- Maternal viral infection during the 1st trimester of pregnancy or
- from damage due to a difficult birth
The combination of brain development during adolescence, stress & the HPA axis are important for understanding why symptoms typically emerge during late adolescence, even if a brain disturbance has been in place since gestation
What other factors can contribute to the development of schizophrenia for those with a genetic predisposition?
*Cannabis use during adolescence
What SES are people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia likely to be in & why is this so?
- People with schizophrenia are likely to be in low SES
* this is due to the downward social mobility caused by the disorder
What factors contribute to a relapse for people with schizophrenia?
- High levels of expressed emotion (EE) in families
* increases in general life stress
What have retrospective developmental studies found and why is it difficult to interpret the findings?
Retrospective developmental studies have identified problems in childhood that were there prior to the onset of schizophrenia
*Because these studies were not designed to predict schizophrenia, it is difficult to interpret these findings
What have clinical high risk studies identified?
Clinical high risk studies have been used to identify young people with mild symptoms who are at higher risk for developing schizophrenia spectrum disorders
What are the common treatments available for schizophrenia?
- 1st generation Antipsychotic drugs (phenothiazines) used since 1950’s - have serious side effects
- 2nd generation anti-psychotic drugs (Clozapine & Risperidone) are as effective & have different side effects
- Drugs alone are not sufficient, people require interventions that teach them effective ways of coping with life challenges
What are some of the talking therapies used with people who have schizophrenia?
*Family therapy
aimed at reduced high levels of expressed emotion can prevent relapse
*social skills training
to meet the challenges of everyday life
*CBT
To change disordered thinking
- Cognitive Remediation Therapies:
- improve cognitive skills
- aid memory & attention, problem solving too
