Module 68: Schizophrenia

Question 1

Schizophrenia

Answer 1

A disorder characterized by delusions, hallucinations, inappropriate emotional expression
*during most severe periods, people with schizophrenia live in a private inner world, preoccupied with strange ideas and images that haunt them

Question 2

Positive Symptoms

Answer 2

• hallucinations
• talk in disorganized & deluded ways
• exhibit inappropriate laughter, tears, or rage

Question 3

Negative Symptoms

Answer 3

• absence of emotions in their voices, expressionless faces, or unmoving - mute and rigid - bodies

Question 4

Hallucination

Answer 4

False sensory experiences, or perceptions, such as seeing something in the absence of an external visual stimulus
*could see, feel, taste, or smell things that exist only in their minds

Question 5

What do auditory hallucinations tend to be?

Answer 5

Voices making insulting remarks or giving orders

Question 6

Delusion

Answer 6

A false belief, often of persecution or grandeur, that may accompany psychotic disorders
*if they have paranoid tendencies, they may believe they are being threatened or pursued

Question 7

How might selective attention be a factor in schizophrenia?

Answer 7

People with schizophrenia are easily distracted by tiny unrelated stimuli, such as the grooves on a brick or tones in a voice
*one cause of disorganized thinking may be a breakdown in selective attention (no sensory stimuli is filtered

Question 8

Disorganized Speech

Answer 8

A positive symptom

- jumbled ideas may make no sense even within sentences, forming what is known as world salad

Question 9

How are emotions inappropriately expressed in schizophrenia?

Answer 9

They expressed emotions of schizophrenia are often utterly inappropriate, split off from reality
ex. Maxine laughed after recalling her grandmother’s death

Question 10

How are emotions diminished in schizophrenia?

Answer 10

Some people w/ schizophrenia lapse into an emotionless flat affect state of no apparent feeling

• most people w/ schizophrenia have an impaired theory of mind - have difficulty perceiving facial expressions and reading others’ states of mind
• struggle to feel sympathy and compassion

Question 11

How might motor behavior be inappropriate and disruptive?

Answer 11

Those with schizophrenia may experience catatonia, characterized by motor behaviors ranging from a physical stupor - remaining motionless for hours - to senseless , compulsive actions, such as continually rocking or rubbing an arm, to sever and dangerous agitation

Question 12

Prevalence & Development of Schizophrenia

Answer 12

• 1 in 100 people will join an estimated 21 million other worldwide who have schizophrenia
• no national boundaries
• strikes young people maturing into adulthood
• men tend to be struck earlier, more severely, and more often

Question 13

Chronic Schizophrenia

Answer 13

Form of schizophrenia in which symptoms usually appear by late adolescence or early adulthood

• as people age, psychotic episodes last longer, recovery periods shorten
• social withdrawal is often found

Question 14

Acute Schizophrenia

Answer 14

Form of schizophrenia that can begin at any age; frequently occurs in response to a traumatic event

• when previously well-adjusted people develop schizophrenia rapidly following particular life stresses - recovery likely
• more often have positive symptoms that respond to drug therapy

Question 15

How might dopamine be associated with schizophrenia?

Answer 15

An excess number of dopamine receptors, including a six-fold excess for the dopamine receptor D4
- a hyper-responsive dopamine system may intensify brain signals in schizophrenia creating positive symptoms - hallucinations & paranoia

Question 16

What helps lessen the symptoms of schizophrenia?

Answer 16

Drugs that block dopamine receptors (Antagonists) often lessen these symptoms.

*Drugs that increase dopamine levels (Agonists) such as amphetamines sometimes intensify them

Question 17

How are the frontal lobes associated with Schizophrenia?

Answer 17

Some people diagnosed with schizophrenia have abnormally low brain activity in the frontal lobes, area that are involved in reasoning, planning, and solving problems

Question 18

What changes occur to the ventricles and cerebral tissue in patients with schizophrenia?

Answer 18

Many studies have also found enlarged, fluid-filled ventricles and a corresponding shrinkage and thinning of cerebral tissue

Question 19

What prenatal events are associated with schizophrenia?

Answer 19

some scientist believe mishaps during prenatal development or delivery causes brain abnormalities in people with schizophrenia
- low birth weight, maternal diabetes, older paternal age, oxygen deprivation during delivery

Question 20

How are prenatal viral infections associated with schizophrenia?

Answer 20

Fetal-virus infections may increase the odds that a child will develop schizophrenia.
*though many women get the flu during second trimeter and only 2% develop schizophrenia

Question 21

Is there a genetic component to schizophrenia?

Answer 21

1 in 100 odds of any person’s being diagnosed with schizophrenia become about 1 in 10 among those who have a sibling or parent with the disorder

Question 22

What is the risk of developing schizophrenia?

Answer 22

The lifetime risk of developing schizophrenia varies with one’s genetic relatedness to someone having this disorder
- 1 in 10 fraternal twins but 5 in 10 identical twins share a schizophrenia diagnosis

Question 23

What is prenatal environment’s effect?

Answer 23

If the co-twin of an identical twin with schizophrenia shared the placenta, the chances of developing the disorder are 6 in 10
- identical twin separate placentas 1 in 10

Question 24

What brain changes are evident in the identical twin with schizophrenia?

Answer 24

When twins differ, only the one afflicted with schizophrenia typically has enlarged, fluid-filled cranial cavities.
The different between the twins implies some nongentic factor, such as a virus, is also at work

Question 25

How do adoption studies inform the discussion?

Answer 25

Children adopted by someone who develops schizophrenia do not “catch” the disorder. Rather, adopted children have an elevated risk if a biological parent is diagnosed with schizophrenia
*genes matter

Question 26

What is the relationship between smoking and schizophrenia?

Answer 26

Most people with schizophrenia smoke.
Smoking increases vulnerability to schizophrenia and contributes to people with schizophrenia having a 14.5 year shorter than average life expectancy

Question 27

How do epigenetic factors impact the development of schizophrenia?

Answer 27

• epigenetic factors influence whether genes will be expressed
• environmental factors such as viral infections, nutritional deprivation, and maternal stress can “turn on” the genes that put some at higher risk for schizophrenia.
• heredity (nature) and life experiences (nurture) work together

Question 28

Early warning signs of schizophrenia?

Answer 28

• social withdrawal
• parents with schizophrenia
• birth complications
• separation from parents
• short attention span & poor muscle coordination
• disruptive or withdrawn behavior
• emotional unpredictability
• poor peer relations and solo play
• childhood physical, sexual, or emotional abuse