Schizophrenia

I was reading some stuff for my physiological psychology course, and I came upon schizophrenia. I’ve always thought schizophrenia was an immensely interesting but horrible disease. I have also done very much research on it. During my junior year, while taking my research methods course, I did a 9 page research paper on this topic and I still felt like I needed more. Basically, I can’t think of a more interesting topic to write a blog about.

Schizophrenia, or dementia praecox, is a split between the emotional and intellectual aspects of experience. For example, someone might laugh for no apparent reason or show no reaction to horrible news. There are various types of schizophrenia, each with different symptoms. Paranoid schizophrenia is a type of schizophrenia where people live with the fear that someone will try to hurt them and they are also very anxious about many things. Disorganized types have problems with their thinking and how they organize their thoughts. These are the patients who talk in “word salads”. Where you can’t understand anything they are saying, but they’re talking without a stop. They also, at many times, experience childlike behavior. Catatonic types are usually less responsive to others. Their muscles and posture become very rigid. Undifferentiated types may have symptoms of one or more types of schizophrenia. Residual types experience some symptoms but not as many as those who have very serious schizophrenia.

There are many things that can be the cause of schizophrenia; from the environment of the womb of the mother during pregnancy, to everyday stress, to drug use, to virus exposure, and even to head injuries during child hood. The symptoms are divided into two major categories; positive and negative symptoms. Positive symptoms are those that are present but shouldn’t be, for example hallucinations or delusions. Negative symptoms are those that aren’t present that should be, for example grossly disorganized behavior, flat affect, and a deficiency in speech and psychomotor retardation.

Thankfully, there are many different medications available. One of the options is psychosocial treatment. This treatment includes, individual psychotherapy, group therapy, family therapy, and community support systems. Another treatment is antipsychotic medications, which is the most common type of medical treatment available. Patients taking atypical antipsychotic medications, as opposed to typical antipsychotic medications, appear to be more cooperative.

This is a terrible, terrible disease that I would not wish on my worst enemy. I can’t imagine this especially in children. Seeing videos of children with schizophrenia is traumatizing, to say the least. Some can’t even live in the same household as their siblings for fear of them hurting each other. 

Mood Disorders

I was reading up on the different anti-depressants out there. I came upon an atypical antidepressant; something not categorized with SSRI’s, MAOI’s, or Tryciclic antidepressants. This antidepressant is called St. Johns wort, and it is an herb. It is, however, marketed as a nutritional supplement instead of a drug; which means that the USDA cannot and does not regulate it. Also, the purity of this “magical herb” varies from bottle to bottle, like others would as well.

An advantage of this is that it is less expensive than antidepressant drugs, also that it is available without a prescription; this may be advantageous or disadvantageous. It can be attained easily but can also be misused, and its effectiveness appears to be about the same as a typical antidepressant. It, however, has potentially dangerous side effects, as it increases the effectiveness of a liver enzyme that breaks down plant toxins. This may sound like a good thing, but it may also break down most medicines. Therefore, taking this can decrease the effectiveness of other drugs such as, AIDS drugs, cancer drugs, and other antidepressant drugs. This also decreases the effects of contraceptive medicines.

There is some scientific evidence that St. John’s wort may be helpful in treating minor depression, but the benefit seems similar to that of antidepressants. However, two large studies showed that the herb was no more effective than a placebo treating major depression of moderate severity. St. John’s wort is often taken in liquid or pill form, but may also be used as a tea. The most common dose in these studies has been 300 mg, three times a day. For a long time, investigators thought a chemical in St. John’s wort called hypericin was responsible for its effects, but more recent information suggests another chemical called hyperforin may play a larger role. Hypericin and hyperforin act on chemical messengers in the nervous system that regulate mood.

This “medicine” is possibly unsafe when taken by mouth in large doses, and might cause severe reactions to sun exposure. There are a lot of special precautions and warnings, and it also decreases the effects of some other medicines. There is a long list of the different medications you cannot take along with St. John’s wort. It could be good to take if you think it might help, however you should always consult with your doctor before taking any medicine. 

This video explains something that I actually forgot. It has additive effects that cause serotonin syndrome. Even if she is a bit monotone, she explains it perfectly! 

Stress & Emotions

It seems that everybody has some kind of stress that they’re dealing with. Whether it’s school, work, or your kids everyone has something.  A few months ago I was in a small car accident. I was waiting at a red light when I saw the car behind me going much faster than I would have liked, the reason for this was, I later found out, that his breaks had given out and he was going to crash into whatever was in front of him. Which happened to be me. The next day, while driving, I was terrified that for some reason it would happen again. Whenever I was waiting at a red light and I would see a car coming behind me I would drive just a couple inches forward, for if he did hit me it wouldn’t be as bad. I know that sounds crazy but that was the logic I used. This went on for a couple more days, but it soon died out and I was back to driving normally.

I know this incident isn’t as big as I made it out to be, but just imagine it being much greater and not being able to get over it in a matter of days. Imagine if it took you many years to get over a single moment. Well my fellow readers; that is what I’m going to talk about.  Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD for short, occurs in people who have endured terrifying experiences, such as a life-threatening attack, or an incredible accident. This happens a lot with soldiers after the war. They suddenly wake up in a cold sweat after having terrible nightmares of what they experienced while they were in war. Symptoms of PTSD are lumped into three main categories, including:

1. Reliving: People with PTSD repeatedly relive the ordeal through thoughts and memories of the trauma. These include flashbacks, hallucinations, and nightmares. They may also feel great distress when certain things remind them of the trauma.

2. Avoiding: The person may avoid people, places, thoughts, or situations that may remind him or her of the trauma. This can lead to feelings of detachment and isolation from friends and family.

3. Increased arousal: These include excessive emotions; problems relating to others, including feeling or showing affection; difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep; and being “jumpy”. There may also be physical symptoms, such as nausea, muscle tension, rapid breathing, and diarrhea.

Not everybody who witnesses a trauma will develop PTSD. The type of support a person receives from family and friends may influence the development or the severity of the symptoms. An estimated 7.8 million Americans will experience some form of PTSD at some point in their lives. About 3.6% or adult Americans suffer from PTSD during the course of a year. Personally, I think the best treatment for PTSD is psychotherapy. This involves the person learning skills to manage symptoms and develop ways of coping, and also helps the person work through the fears associated with the traumatic event. There are a variety of psychotherapy approaches that are used to treat people with PTSD, all of which work very well. 

This video is so great and shows exactly what I mentioned about this happening mostly with soldiers.

Sleep

I was reading up on sleep disorders and I think the one that caught my eye the most was narcolepsy. This is a condition characterized by frequent periods of sleepiness during the day and only strikes about 1 person in 1,000. It may run in families, but some cases show up in people with no affected relatives.Narcolepsy has four main symptoms, although not every patient has all four. 

1. Gradual or sudden attacks of sleepiness during the day, which may occur after eating, while driving, or even while talking to someone on the phone. These moments of sleepiness usually only last 15 minutes but they can last longer. 

2. This is categorized by occasional cataplexy – an attack of muscle weakness while the person remains awake. During cataplexy the persons neck will fall an their knees will buckle, they may stay in this paralyzed state for several minutes. This is often triggered by strong emotions, such as anger and great excitement. 

3. Sleep paralysis, which is an inability to move while falling asleep or waking up. Although this is common amongst people without narcolepsy, those with narcolepsy experience it more frequently. 

4. Hypnagogic hallucinations, which are dreamlike experiences that are difficult to distinguish from reality. These often occur at the onset of sleep.

This cause relates to the neurotransmitter orexin. People with narcolepsy lack the hypothalamic cells that produce and release orexin. One possibility for this lack of neurotransmitters is an autoimmune reaction, in which the immune system attacks part of the body – in this case, cells with orexin. Since orexin is useful in maintaining wakefulness, people lacking orexin alternate between short waking periods and short sleepy periods instead of staying awake throughout the day.

This topic caught my attention mostly because I had seen a, probably, exaggerated case in a movie called Rat Race. One of the characters in the movie had severe narcolepsy and would fall asleep at random times throughout the movie. He would fall asleep walking or even running sometimes. I can only imagine someone going through something like this. It would feel as if you lost time while you were awake.

There is, unfortunately, no cure for narcolepsy and currently the most common form of treatment is stimulant drugs such as methylphenidate (Ritalin), which enhance dopamine and norepinephrine activity. Some lifestyle changes you can make can include eating lighter and healthier, perhaps a vegetarian diet. Scheduling a brief nap, 10-15 minutes, after lunch if possible. This is a chronic illness that may be very dangerous but not deadly, and can be controlled with the proper treatment.

This video is incredible. This lady that has narcolepsy is a great example of the condition and how traumatic it can be for her and her loved ones. 

Sex

I was reading up a few things last night and what caught my attention the most was intersex people. This is such an interesting topic, I felt that I just needed to write about it! 

Intersexes are people with a mixture of both male and female genitalia, hermaphordites, or others develop an intermediate appearace because of  an atypical hormone pattern. This being, because testosterone masculinizes the genitals and the hypothalamus during early development. A genetic male with low levels of testosterone or a deficiency of testosterone receptors may develop a female or intermediate appearance. Also, a genetic female who is exposed to more testosterone than the average can be party masculanized. 

An estimated 1 in 100 children in the US is born with some degree of genital ambiguity, and 1 in 2,000 has enough ambiguity to make its male or female status uncertain. This is so crazy to me. It’s surprising how this can happen to anyone. I can’t imagine being a little boy and feeling like a girl or being a girl and feeling like a boy. This must be such a hard thing for those who are intersexed. 

I actually watched a couple of videos on this topic a few years ago and it’s so heart wrenching to see. It’s so difficult for intersexes to live their lives normally. The constant bullying in school is enough, even just wondering why their growing breasts or trying to hide them from others. I can’t imagine not being sure whether I was a boy or a girl. This has to be difficult for both the child and the parents. Basically, what parents would do with an intersex child is just raise it as a girl. What they need to do is wait until the child is old enough and observe them and how they interact or how they play with other toys. Parents should let the child decide what gender he wants to adopt. 

This video explains exactly what I’ve been saying. This woman knew she was a girl at 4 years old! She would look at boys and only pretend to act like them so nobody would notice. It’s so surprising after a 27 year marriage and 6 kids!
 

Pain, Olfaction, Pheromones, and Synesthesia

While reading up on our 5 senses I looked into something called synesthesia. This interested me so much, mostly because it’s so unbelievable and strange. Synesthesia is an experience some people have where stimulation of one sense evokes a perception of another one also. In layman’s terms, you may smell an apple and say that smell is bright pink, or someone might say that the taste of potatoes is kind of like the color orange. As weird as this sounds it’s actually something people experience. People with synesthesia have increase amounts of gray matter in certain brain areas and altered connections to other areas. This response occurs in the cerebral cortex and not in the receptors. The idea of a word triggers that synesthetic experience before they have even thought of the word itself. For example, I read about a man who has color vision and reports synethetic colors that he doesn’t see in real life. His brain can see all the colors, but his cones cannot send the messages. A hypothesis for this is that some of the axons from one cortical area branch into another cortical area. This isn’t the case for all but it can be for some. There are also various types of synesthesia. There’s color graphemic synesthesia where letters or colors appear to be colored. Also, there’s spatial-sequence where numbers, months, or days of the week have precise locations in space (1950 may be “farther away” than 1977), or may have a 3D view of a year as a map. There’s also ordinal-linguistic personification, where numbers, days, months, and even letters are associated with different personalities. For example, a synesthetic I read about said, “4 is honest, but 3 I cannot trust…9 is dark, a gentleman, tall, and graceful. I is a bit of a worrier at times although easy-going; J is male and K is female. Over 60 types of synethesia have been reported, but only small amounts have been evaluated by scientific research. This just seems so interesting to me and I would love to actually meet someone who has this. I’ll probably do more research on this topic in the future.

This video is so interesting and I particularly chose this one because it shows how people with synesthesia are completely normal and are happy that they have this type of experience with letters and numbers. This just seems so interesting to me especially the part where the letter in their names had the same colors. 

Learning, Memory, and Amnesia

I used to think Alzheimer's disease was something that only happened to people who suffered a stroke or to people that had that gene in their family. I never thought it could just happen to anyone. But it can. Alzheimer’s disease can happen to anyone. About half of all patients with late-onset Alzheimer’s disease have no known relatives with the disease. This fact to me is frightening to say the least. I can’t imagine myself going through such troubling and debilitating symptoms. My grandmother has Alzheimer’s disease and I’m not saying this to gain sympathy but to show a real life example. It’s been more than difficult these past 7 years to deal with something as tragic as this. From forgetting simple words or stumbling over a few, to loosing motor functioning in both her legs and arms, to not having any recollection of a simple birthday party. It’s a constant struggle to help her walk or to even have a regular conversation with her, which has more than become impossible in the past 2 years. A protein called amyloid-b that accumulates both inside and outside neurons causes this disease. The net effect is to damage dendritic spines, decrease synaptic input, and decrease plasticity. As amyloid-b damages axons and dendrites, the damaged structures cluster into structures called plaques. As these plaques accumulate, the cerebral cortex, hippocampus, and other areas waste away. Another protein called tau separates from microtubules and clumps together to form tangles that accumulate inside the neuron and disable the transport system then destroying the cell. Neurons then disconnect and die which causes memory loss. The brain then shrinks and looses function. The most common treatment is to give drugs that stimulate acetylcholine receptors or prolong acetylcholine release. This increases arousal. Increased arousal improves memory; and people who drink 3-5 cups of coffee per day are less likely than average to develop Alzheimer’s.

This video is so interesting and gives lots of good facts about Alzheimer's and how awareness is the most important thing.

Brain Lateralization

At first, I was going to write about split-brain patients and the constant struggle they face with having one hand completely independent from the other. I was looking for information on the split-brain topic when I found out about Wernicke's Aphasia. This fascinated me so much. Wernicke's Aphasia, which is also known as fluent aphasia, is an impairment in language ability traditionally associated with neurological damage to Wernicke's area in the brain. Wernicke’s area is responsible for comprehension of speech. Speech retains a fluid sounding rhythm, while speech comprehension is greatly affected. Basically, what this means is that patients with this aphasia keep their fluidity of speech, being able to keep talking with no stops, but the words they say are jumbled, kind of like a word-salad, where all the words are mixed together and there's no way of distinguishing them from each other. Reading and writing are also affected with this impairment. These patients have no idea that they are jumbling their speech, which fascinates me as well, and they think they are just talking like any other normal person. I guess it just really fascinates me how you can think you're speaking normally but not really be saying anything at all.

I found lots of videos on Wernicke's Aphasia, each more interesting than the last, but I chose only one to show. I think the reason I chose this video was because this patient is so young and she suffered a stroke at such a young age. 

Brain Anatomy, Development, and Plasticity

Prefrontal lobotomy is a hot topic with many psychologists and psychiatrists everywhere. I find this topic to be so very interesting. A prefrontal lobotomy is pretty much disconnecting the prefrontal cortex from the rest of the brain during surgery. Basically, what the surgeon does is cut the connections of the prefrontal cortex towards the rest of the brain. Many physicians reasoned that this might help people who suffered from severe, sometimes untreatable psychiatric disorders. However, this is very dangerous and could have very serious consequences. Many surgeries (or experiments if you’d like to call them) have been done very crudely with instruments that are not seen in hospitals, like metal drills or ice picks. Many doctors perform these tests even while knowing how many horrible consequences they might cause. They do this only for their sole gain or to simply quiet unruly patients. This is seen in the movie “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest” where several patients in the mental ward receive lobotomies to discipline or calm them. They end up leaving he lobotomy affectless, showing no emotion. The narrator of this movie even described how their eyes are all smoked up and gray and deserted inside.

This video is kind of long but it's so interesting, around 1 minute it shows how they perform the lobotomies and how crude it really was. Towards the end it also gives more information about what happened to some of Walter Freeman's patients. 

Synapses, Drugs, and Addictions

I was reading up on various kinds of drugs, when I found opiate drugs. These drugs are derived from, or chemically similar to those derived from, the opium poppy. This reminded me of a Seinfeld episode where Elaine is going on vacation with her boss, for work related issues, but she needs to pass a drug test. They administer the drug test and she fails! They find trace amounts of opiates in her system. This being because every morning before going to work she stops by a local diner and orders a poppy seed muffin. It’s weird how a simple poppy seed muffin provides similar chemicals to those found in drugs like heroin. I personally love poppy seeds so I can just imagine going into a drug test and failing because I ate a poppy seed muffin earlier. I also read that because of this skewed result some federal prisons prohibit inmates from eating these types of baked goods. This has happened so much so, that the federal test threshold for morphine and codeine has been raised from 300 nanograms per millileter to 2,000. Federal agents figure that this will eliminate most of the false positives by eating too many poppy seed muffins. So fellow readers, next time you go into a drug test don’t eat any poppy seeds for breakfast.

This video shows exactly what I’m writing about. The fact that it’s a mythbusters episode, which I love, helps too. It’s a little long but if you fast forward to the end it shows you that the urine, in fact, does test positive for opiates.

Nerve Cells and Nerve Impulses

Nerve cells and nerve impulses are probably one of the hardest things for me to understand. I love psychology and studying the brain and what not, but the physiological side of it is just something I do not get. Something I found very interesting was one part where it talked about local anesthetic drugs. These drugs, Novocain and Xylocaine, attach to the sodium channels of the membrane, which then prevents sodium ions from entering and so stops action potentials. In other, more comprehensible, words when a dentist applies Novocain before starting work on your teeth, your brain receptors are sensing the unbearable pain but the axons can't transmit that message to your brain, which is why you don’t feel a thing. This seemed so interesting to me because I’ve always wanted to know how anesthetics work. There’s times where I’ve gotten anesthesia and it fascinates me how I can see the doctor working and I know it has to be very painful yet I can’t feel a thing. It’s so interesting how it’s the brain that is the main part in this whole ordeal. The only reason why you can’t feel any of the pain is because your brain doesn’t receive the signal that there is pain. Most people don’t really think about that. It kind of reminds me of people suffering from Alzheimer’s for example. At the later stages, once they’ve lost most of their brain functioning, they can no longer walk like they used to before. The reason for this isn’t because they physically can’t move. The real reason is that the part of the brain responsible for movement can’t receive the information that it needs in order for that leg to move. 

I know this video is very short but it's a great example of exactly what anesthesia does and how it works on your nerves. 

Introduction to Physiological Psychology

I think what I found the most interesting about these modules was module 1.1 where it talks about the various biological explanations. There’s physiological, ontogenetic, evolutionary, and functional explanations for various behaviors humans and animals do. I found the evolutionary explanation for goose bumps the most interesting. This explanation I had never really thought about why goose bumps would happen. Actually, I never thought there was a reason for them occurring. In the book it says that when people are frightened they get erections of the hairs especially on their arms and shoulders. We inherited this tendency from our ancestors who had a lot more hair than we do now. The functional explanation is so the animal will look larger and more intimidating because of the erect hairs. They used an example of cats and how whenever they get frightened they kind of stand up a little more and their hairs are erected to make them look bigger and therefore more intimidating to other animals that will try to hurt them. They gave an example of birds as well, in how a 4-month old bird migrates south and probably doesn’t have any idea why he does it. Then she lays an egg and sits atop it and also defends it from predators but again she doesn’t know why. This is kind of like when a human yawns or laughs. We know why we’re doing them but can we really explain to someone the reason why we’re doing them?

I included this video of camouflaging because it's an interesting way to explain how the functional explanation for this would be that it would make the animal inconspicuous to predators and it makes it able to blend into its surroundings.