382: Biopsychology of Psychiatric Disorders

Biopsychology: Chapter 18

1. Psychiatric Disorders
1. 2 Main difficulties in diagnosing
1. Patients suffering the same disorder often display different symptoms
2. Patients suffering from different disorders often display many of the same symptoms
2. Schizophrenia
1. Means "the splitting of psychic functions"
2. Demographics
1. Occurs in about 1% of individuals
2. Begins in adolescence or early adulthood
3. Symptoms
1. Positive
1. Delusions of control, persecution, and grandeur
2. Hallucinations: voices telling the person what to do
3. Inappropriate affect
4. Incoherent speech or thought
5. Odd behavior
2. Negative
1. Affective flattening
2. Alogia: Reduction or absence of speech 
3. Avolition: Reduction or absence of motivation 
4. Anhedonia: Inability to experience pleasure
4. Causal Factors
1. Schizophrenia seems to be very hereditary but the fact that occurrence in twins is substantially less than 100% suggests that there are strong environmental factors as well
3. I decided to stop taking notes on this chapter because I went through the slides for today and they seem to be completely unrelated to the chapter.  Last time this happened he basically said to disregard the reading.  So... yeah.