Task 8

Question 1

What criteria do you have to fulfill in order to have a psychosis?

Answer 1

You have to be unable to tell reality from hallucinations/delusions/illusions.

Question 2

What are the positive symptoms of schizophrenia?

Answer 2

1. Delusions
2. Hallucinations
3. Disorganized thought and/or speech
4. Disorganized or abnormal behavior

Question 3

What is a negative symptom of schizophrenia?

Answer 3

When something gets “taken away” rather than added:

• Flattened affect
• Anhedonia
• Avolition
• Asociality

Question 4

Out of the 5 symptoms of schizophrenia, how many have to be present for a diagnosis?

Answer 4

2

Question 5

What is a delusion of reference?

Answer 5

Belief that everyday things or events have a special significance to yourself or convey some sort of message.

Question 6

Amy believes that her roommate is planning on getting her out the house using threats. What kind of delusion does she have?

Answer 6

Persecutory

Question 7

What is the difference between the delusion of thought broadcasting versus the delusion of thought withdrawal.

Answer 7

In thought broadcasting, your thoughts are openly visible to the public, whereas in thought withdrawal, a single other actively extracts thoughts from your mind.

Question 8

What can be said about the delusion someone from Brazil has versus the ones someone living in the UK might have.

Answer 8

The content may differ according to the culture.

Question 9

Are hallucinations present only in clinical cases?

Answer 9

No, about 15% of healthy individuals experience some sort of hallucination once a while.

Question 10

What do we call it, when someone tends to slip between topics when talking?

Answer 10

Derailment

Question 11

Sometimes, schizophrenic people say words that make sense only to them. What are these words called?

Answer 11

Neologisms

Question 12

What physiological difference between the genders might contribute to the fact that women suffer less from speech problems in schizophrenia?

Answer 12

In women, the speech centrum in the brain is more bilateral with one side being able to take over for the other.

Question 13

What is an umbrella term for speech problems?

Answer 13

Formal Thought Disorder

Question 14

What kind of symptoms fall under the category of disorganized behaviors?

Answer 14

• Catatonia
• Motor agitation
• Mutism
• Catatonic Excitement
• Negativism

Question 15

What is meant with Catatonic Excitement?

Answer 15

Motor activity without any objective reason or goal/function.

Question 16

What do we call it when someone shows no response to instructions?

Answer 16

Negativism

Question 17

What is mutism?

Answer 17

Doing inappropriate postures or gestures

Question 18

What is avolition?

Answer 18

Inability to initiate or persist at common goal-directed activities (like getting dressed)

Question 19

What might be a confounding factor in the finding that schizophrenic patients exhibit anhedonia?

Answer 19

• Comorbidity with Depression
• Patients’ inability to fill in self-report forms
• Patients’ inability to overtly show positive emotions

Question 20

What is the lifetime prevalence of schizophrenia?

Answer 20

0,5 - 2%

Question 21

If a schizophrenia patient has been hospitalized because of the disorder, what does this say about the future?

Answer 21

There is a 50 - 80% chance they will be hospitalized again.

Question 22

What is a major cause of death in schizophrenic patients?

Answer 22

Suicide - 10 - 15% kill themselves

Question 23

How many of the patients of schizophrenia tend to recover?

Answer 23

41%

Question 24

The onset for schizophrenia is often earlier in men. What consequences does this have?

Answer 24

As men’s brains develop later, the earlier onset is even more damaging for their healthy brain development.

Question 25

What might be a confounding factor in studying heritability of schizophrenia?

Answer 25

Schizophrenic parents might not be able to provide a healthy upbringing to the children, which indirectly results in higher levels of psychosis.

Question 26

What kind of disease is schizophrenia neurologically?

Answer 26

Neurodevelopmental Disorder

Question 27

What are main brain abnormalities in schizophrenic patients?

Answer 27

- Reduced cortical gray matter - Abnormal Hippocampal activation - abnormalities in the PFC - Enlarged Ventricles

Question 28

What is a structural abnormality in the brain that is often an early sign for schizophrenia?

Answer 28

Abnormalities in white matter structures

Question 29

What is the content of the original dopamine theory and why was it abolished?

Answer 29

Symptoms of schizophrenia can be caused by excess dopamine | -> Proved too simple

Question 30

How did the revised dopamine theory build on the original one?

Answer 30

It stated, that excess dopamine in the mesolimbic pathway and low levels in the PFC are contributing factors to schizophrenia.

Question 31

Why might serotonin receptors be involved in schizophrenia?

Answer 31

Because Serotonin neurons regulate the activity of dopaminergic neurons in the mesolimbic pathway

Question 32

What are points of criticism against the use of typical antipsychotics?

Answer 32

- Around 25% of patients don't respond to the drugs - negative symptoms are left untreated - high relapse rate after treatment - severe side effects including tardive dyskinesia (involuntary movements of facial muscles, which is irreversible)

Question 33

What kind of drug is Clozapine (Clorazil)?

Answer 33

Atypical Antipsychotic

Question 34

What are advantages of atypical antipsychotics over typical ones?

Answer 34

- They reduce negative symptoms as well as positive | - Side effects are present but do not include tardive dyskinesia

Question 35

What are central aspects in each of the treatment paradigms: Cognitive, Behavioral, Social?

Answer 35

Cognitive: Recognize and change demoralizing attitudes Behavioral: Social learning and operant conditioning Social: Increasing contact between patients and other people

Question 36

Why might family treatments be a good option for schizophrenic patients?

Answer 36

- Families have to be taught how to deal with the disordered family member in order to improve his chances - The family can help maintain a drug or other therapy

Question 37

Schizophrenic patients tend to use a number of cognitive biases. What are they?

Answer 37

- Jumping to conclusions - Maladaptive Attributional Style - Metamemory - Bias against disconfirming evidence - TOM deficits

Question 38

Why is a maladaptive attributional style related to schizophrenia?

Answer 38

- Patients often cast blame for events onto specific other people, rather than objectively evaluating the event

Question 39

What character trait that many schizophrenic people have contributes to their maladaptive attributional style?

Answer 39

Low self-esteem

Question 40

What is metamemory?

Answer 40

- Overgeneralized Memories

Question 41

What is a strength of MCT (Metacognitive Training)?

Answer 41

It helps reduce cognitive biases

Question 42

Schizoaffective Disorder can be seen as a mixture of which two kinds of disorders?

Answer 42

Schizophrenia and a Mood Disorder

Question 43

What is special about Schizotypal Personality Disorder?

Answer 43

Patients exhibit a lifelong pattern of oddities, but have a grasp on reality.

Question 44

When comparing auditory hallucinations of healthy and schizophrenic people, what did Daalman et al. find?

Answer 44

- The number, loudness, identity and location of hallucinations were not different between the subject groups. - The main difference lays in the frequency, the control over them, and the emotionality of the content. - In healthy subjects, the onset for hallucinations was found to be earlier. - Explaining the hallucinations in a supernatural way was actually more common among healthy participants.

Question 45

Which finding of the frontal lobe model of schizophrenia was found to be incorrect?

Answer 45

Hypofrontality