Samantha MontalvoBrain Storm #6Psych 260SchizophreniaThere has been research that has shown that there is a neuroanatomical relationship between schizophrenia and the right ventro-lateral prefrontal cortex. It has also been noted that there has been reduced willingness to correct the distorted perceptions of a person and that it is associated with the volume of the right ventro-lateral prefrontal cortex (Orfei,2012). The ventro-lateral prefrontal cortex plays such a big role in many of the high level cognitive functions which includes but is not limited to, working memory, and decision making. As far as working memory goes, the ventro-lateral prefrontal cortex helps in transferring, maintaining, and matching both semantic and also autobiographical information that has been obtained recently or retrieved from long term memory. Based on structural and functional neuroimaging studies that have been conducted in schizophrenia, it has been noted that a decrease in volume, is associated to deficits in encoding and also retrieving verbal material in the working memory tasks. When it comes to decision making, there have been research findings that tell us that the right ventro-lateral prefrontal cortex does surprisingly play a big and important role in generating alternative
hypothesis in tasks in which a person is required to produce a response to a problem where there are many possible answers (Orfei,2012). Specifically, in schizophrenia, there is a significant activation within the right ventro-lateral prefrontal cortex that is associated with high impulsivity and also the difficulty in preventing incorrect responding that hinder an effective decision-making process. What these findings imply is that in schizophrenia, there is a decrease in volume and it is associated with poor ability in identifying an alternative hypothesis that concerns one’s own biases and misperceptions that in return affects a correct awareness of the illness. There is a neuroanatomical correlation between schizophrenia and basal ganglia. Basal ganglia are loop generators that are connected to motivational and motor circuits ablate the old subcortical dualism (Braff & Swerdlow, 1997). The basal ganglia are likely to participate in developing motor and cognitive patterns, which then differentiates itself from others and can then result in both the positive and negative symptoms of the disorder. Therefore, this area can most likely be connected to symptoms associated with schizophrenia. A schizophrenic person can have extreme apathy, be socially withdrawn, have emotional unresponsiveness, and also have a lack of drive or lack of initiative. Positive symptoms include, delusions, hallucinations, as well as disordered thinking and speech.Neurochemical correlates of schizophreniaThere have been significant studies that have been conducted in determining the neurochemical correlates of schizophrenia. Deficits in a
variety of various neurochemical species have shown that gamma-aminobutyric acid is associated with schizophrenia. Multiple studies have also shown that neurochemical markers indicate that all neurons that use GABA as a transmitter, and also those that incorporate GABA uptake sites and glutamate decarboxylase. The abnormalities show us losses that are specific to certain subtypes of GABAergic neurons. The study which was conducted by Reynolds, Zhang, and Beasley (2001) revealed to us that calcium binding proteins demonstrate to us selective deficits. They found losses of parvalbumin and calbindin cells in the prefrontal cortex in schizophrenia. Another neurotransmitter system I came across that correlates with schizophrenia is glutamate. Besides some of the contradictory reports, there have been research findings that associate a cortical pathology in both schizophrenia and also glutamatergic synapses.When it comes to managing one’s schizophrenia, antipsychotic drugs play a crucial role. They have been in existence since the mid 1950s. These drugs reduce the symptoms significantly. However, they do not cure one’s schizophrenia. However, when the patient is on the medication, they can function much better which improves their health and their wellbeing. Medications such as loxapine, perphenazine, trifluoperazine, and fluphenazine are all used to treat schizophrenia. These drugs are helpful in normalizing the aberrant systems, which then leads to enabling the patient to overcome delusions, though disorders, and hallucinations.
Contemporary ArticleVenkatasubramanian, G. (2010). Neuroanatomical correlates of psychopathology in antipsychotic-naive schizophrenia. Indian journal of psychiatry, 52(1), 28.Why did they do it?The objective of this study was basically to examine psychopathology and also gray matter abnormalities among the antipsychotic naïve schizophrenic patient and find out the association between the two. The researchers of this study explained that previous studies that carried out using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) had not used automated image analysis to determine the volume of gray matter correlates of psychopathology among the schizophrenic patients.How did they do it?The researchers took the 30 participants and conducted an MRI of each. They also used optimized voxel-based morphometry to allow them to compare 27 age, sex education, and handedness matched healthy controls for the differences in gray matter volume. Who did they study?The researched studied 30 patients who has antipsychotic-naïve schizophrenia and also 27 participants who were healthy. They recruited
these patients with schizophrenia from the National Institute of Mental Health at their outpatient office. They also recruited participants from the Neurosciences which is located in India. As for the healthy participants they were recruited through word of mouth from other volunteers.What type of measures did they use?The researchers for the most part examined the volume of gray matter in temporal, cingulate, frontal, and precuneus cortices. For most of the study they used the VBM, which allowed them to use a rapid and unbiased technique. They also used the Positive and Negative syndrome scale to measure the psychopathology which had a good inter-rater reliability. What really helped them was the VBM to examine the correlations between the Positive and Negative syndrome scale scores and gray matter volumes.What did they find?The researchers found out that schizophrenic patient’s high gray matter volume deficits in cingulate, insula, frontal, temporal, and precuneus cortices. It was also evident that the positive syndrome score was correlated negatively with the volume of the left superior temporal gyrus. In addition, the negative syndrome score was inversely correlated with cingulate, frontal, and cerebella gray matter volumes. Based on these results, it can be concluded that the cortical and cerebellar gray matter volume shortage and their negative correlations with psychopathology scores supposed the cognitive dysmetria in schizophrenia patients.
ReferencesBraff, D. L., & Swerdlow, N. R. (1997). Neuroanatomy of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia bulletin, 23(3), 509-512.Orfei, M. D., Piras, F., Macci, E., Caltagirone, C., & Spalletta, G. (2012). The neuroanatomical correlates of cognitive insight in schizophrenia. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, nss016.Reynolds, G. P., Zhang, Z. J., & Beasley, C. L. (2001). Neurochemical correlates of cortical GABAergic deficits in schizophrenia: selective losses of calcium binding protein immunoreactivity. Brain research bulletin, 55(5), 579-584.Venkatasubramanian, G. (2010). Neuroanatomical correlates of psychopathology in antipsychotic-naive schizophrenia. Indian journal of psychiatry, 52(1), 28.