Chapter 12 - Psychopathology

• delusion


  a false belief that is strongly held in spite of contrary evidence
• schizophrenia


  severe psychopathological disorder characterized by negative symptoms such as emotional withdrawal and flat affect, by positive symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions, and by cognitive symptoms such as poor attention span
• positive symptom


  an abnormal behavior state
• negative symptom


  an abnormality that reflects insufficient functioning
• concordance


  sharing of a characteristic by both individuals in a pair of twins
• hypofrontal hypothesis


  the idea that schizophrenia may reflect underactivation of the frontal lobes
• lobotomy


  the surgical separation of a portion of the frontal lobes from the rest of the brain, once used as a treatment for schizophrenia and many other ailments
• chlorpromazine


  an early antipsychotic drug that revolutionized the treatment of schizophrenia
• dyskinesia


  difficulty or distortion in voluntary movement
• tardive dyskinesia


  a disorder associated with first-generation antipsychotic use and characterized by involuntary movements, especially of the face and mouth
• supersensitivity psychosis


  an exaggerated rebound psychosis that may emerge when doses of antipsychotics are reduced
• antipsychotic


  any of a class of drugs that alleviate symptoms of schizophrenia, typically by blocking dopamine receptors
• dopamine hypothesis


  the idea that schizophrenia results from either excessive levels of synaptic dopamine or excessive postsynaptic sensitivity to dopamine
• first-generation anti-psychotic


  an antischizophrenic drug that shows antagonist activity at dopamine D2 receptors
• second-generation antipsychotic


  an antipsychotic drug that has primary actions other than or in addition to the dopamine D2 receptor antagonism that characterizes first-generation antipsychotics
• clozapine


  a second-generation antipsychotic that blocks 5HT2A receptors
• phencyclidine (PCP)


  an anesthetic agent that is also a psychedelic drug; makes many people feel dissociated from themselves and their environment
• psychotomimetic


  a drug that induces a state resembling schizophrenia
• ketamine


  a dissociative anesthetic drug, similar to PCP, that acts as as NDMA receptor agonist
• glutamate hypothesis


  the idea that schizophrenia may be caused, in part, by understimulation of glutamate receptors
• depression


  a psychiatric condition characterized by symptoms such as unhappy mood; loss of interests, energy, and appetite; and difficulty concentrating
• electroconvulsive shock therapy (ECT)

  a last-resort treatment for unmanageable depression, in which a strong electrical current is passed through the brain, causing a seizure
• repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS)


  a noninvasive treatment in which repeated pulses of focused magnetic energy are used to stimulate the cortex through the scalp
• monoamine oxidase (MAO)


  an enzyme that breaks down monoamine neurotransmitters, thereby inactivating them
• selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor


  an antidepressant drug that blocks the reuptake of transmitters at serotonergic synapses
• cognitive behavioral therapy


  psychotherapy aimed at corrective negative thinking and consciously changing behaviors as a way of changing feelings
• meta-analysis


  a type of quantitative review of a field of research, in which the results of multiple previous studies are combined in order to identify overall patterns that are consistent across studies
• deep brain stimulation (DBS)

  mild electrical stimulation through an electrode that is surgically implanted in the brain
• postpartum depression


  a bout of depression that afflicts a woman either immediately before or after giving birth
• learned helplessness


  a learning paradigm in which individuals are subjected to inescapable, unpleasant conditions
• bipolar disorder


  a psychiatric disorder characterized by periods of depression that alternate with excessive, expansive moods
• lithium


  a chemical element that often relieves the symptoms of bipolar disorder
• anxiety disorder


  any of a class of psychological disorders that includes recurrent panic states and generalized anxiety disorder
• benzodiazapine


  any of a class of antianxiety drugs that are noncompetitive agonists of GABAa receptors in the central nervous system
• anxiolytic


  a substance that is used to reduce anxiety
• post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)


  a disorder in which memories of an unpleasant episode repeatedly plague the person
• fear conditioning


  a form of classical conditioning in which fear comes to be associated with previously neutral stimuli
• obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)


  an anxiety disorder in which the affected individual experiences recurrent unwanted thoughts and engages in repetitive behaviors without reason or the ability to stop
• Tourette's syndrome


  a disorder involving heightened sensitivity to sensory stimuli that may be accompanied by verbal or physical tics
• Prevalence rates for _______ are much higher for women than for men.

  depression