Question

Short Essay Question, Please explain and give examples.

Describe the positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia, their underlying mechanisms and pharmacologic evidence supporting the existence of positive and negative symptoms.

Answer 1

Positive symptoms of Schizophrenia include hallucinations, delusions and racing thoughts. Negative symptoms are apathy, nonexistent social functioning and lack of emotions.

Underlying mechanism - These are not fully understood yet, however few theories explain the changes in the structural and functional characteristics of brain, including function of neurotransmitters to cause the symptoms. Dopamine has a role in mesolimbic pathway and the positive symptoms. Also low number of glutamate receptor is seen in Schizophrenic patients. Their size of brain, hippocampal volume is reduced while there is abnormality in structure of prefrontal cortex and temporal cortex. Patients also show cerebral blood decrease in left parahippocampal region.

Pharmacological evidence- Mechanisms underlying to the effectiveness of atypical antipsychotics is still not elucidated. Since, they bind to many receptors and inhibit neurotransmitter transmission, it suggests that the pharmacological properties may contribute to clinical symptoms.