Cognitive deficits represent a particularly important point of intervention for the treatment of schizophrenia, a debilitating psychiatric disease that affects approximately 1% of the population (McGrath et al., 2008). These deficits are present in unmedicated (Saykin et al., 1991) and first episode patients with schizophrenia (Bilder et al., 1991; Hoff et al., 2005). Cognitive deficits are present throughout the lifetime of a patient with schizophrenia (Aylward et al., 1984) and remain stable through at least 10 years of illness (Hoff et al., 2005). Amelioration of the cognitive deficits, more than positive and negative symptoms, predict a satisfactory functional outcome in terms of full time employment and therefore represent an important target for therapeutic intervention (Green, 1996; Green, 2006). However, current typical antipsychotics generate little if any improvement in cognitive deficits in schizophrenia and therefore novel compounds are needed as indicated by the initiative sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health called Measurement and Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia (MATRICS) (Keefe et al., 2007; Young et al., 2009).
The MATRICS initiative details many animal models of schizophrenia for the purpose of investigating novel compounds with therapeutic efficacy toward the cognitive deficits of schizophrenia. N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor noncompetitive antagonists are appropriate compounds utilized in order to model schizophrenia based on the evidence that pharmacological agents that block the NMDA receptor calcium channel, such as phencyclidine (PCP), ketamine, and MK-801, produce positive and negative symptoms along with cognitive deficits in healthy volunteers, in addi...
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...osage after menopause (Seeman, 1983). Moreover, women have more severe psychotic symptoms when estrogen levels are low such as during the low-estrogen phases of the menstrual cycle, during menopause, and the postpartum period (Seeman, 1996). When the estrogen estradiol has been administered in conjunction with an atypical antipsychotic, estradiol reduced positive and negative symptoms and also improved the cognitive deficits in women with schizophrenia (Kulkani et al., 1996, Lindamer et al., 2001, Kulkarni et al., 2001, Kulkarni et al., 2008).
In the current study, we investigated whether 17-β estradiol, an estrogen, could reverse the phencyclidine-induced deficits in the NORT in female rats. We report that chronic estradiol treatment alleviated the sub-chronic PCP induced deficits in the NORT in ovariectomized female rats both therapeutically and protectively.
Stahl, S. M., & Mignon, L. (2010). Antipsychotics: Treating psychosis, mania and depression (2nd ed.).
The Role of Dopamine Receptors in Schizophrenia. Retrieved March 3, 2005, From Stanford University, Chemistry department web site, http://www.chem.csustan.edu/chem44x0/SJBR/Mann.htm Naheed, M., & Green, B. (2000). Focus on Clozapine. Retrieved February 7, 2005. From http://www.priory.com/focus14.htm Waddinton, J.L., & Buckley, P.F. (1996).
-Lieberman JA, Stroup TS, McEvoy JP, Swartz MS, Rosenheck RA, Perkins DO, Keefe RS, Davis SM, Davis CE, Lebowitz BD, Severe J, Hsiao JK. Effectiveness of antipsychotic drugs in patients with chronic schizophrenia. N Engl J Med. 2005. Web.
... middle of paper ... ... It is quite possible within the realm of psychological theory that the stress of childbirth, coupled with post-partum depression and the mental strain of having to repress her emotions, triggered the schizophrenia.
Antipsychotic drugs are the new quick fix for mental illness in children, whether right or wrong. Doctors shouldn’t give children antipsychotic drugs at a young age, even though it may be the easy way out of dealing with these children. These drugs will make the victim lifeless and without character for a long time. Such drugs have caused major side effects which caused the child to have long-term issues, which they will face for the rest of their lives. In other words, antipsychotic drugs are gruesome for young children and therefore shouldn’t be used.
According to Gamble and Brennan (2000), the effectiveness of medication for schizophrenia to relieve patients from psychotic symptoms is limited. Although patients have adequate medication, some received little or no benefit from it and almost half of them still experience psychotic symptoms. They are also more likely to suffer relapse (Gamble and Brennan, 2000). Furthermore, Valmaggia, et al. (2005) found that 50% of patients who fully adhere to anti-psychotic medication regimes still have ongoing positi...
In the 1990s, newer generation anti-schizophrenia drugs were developed. Fortunately, these medicines do not have the neurological side-effects of the older generation of schizophrenia drugs. The following are newer or atypical antipsychotics.
I am quite fascinated by generalized control mechanisms and the role they play in the nervous system. I am also quite curious about the relationship between different generalized control mechanisms. The concept of mood and depression in particular have always interested me. I have always wondered what actually causes depression. Why can some people be in a perfectly good mood one day and then less than a week later start exhibiting the signs of clinical depression? I have always been curious about the role that experience and chemical imbalances play in depression and other mood disorders. I donUt totally understand how chemical depression can originate as the result of severe outside stressors in a personUs life. How can this stress go from simply stress in the experiences and environment of a person to a chemical imbalance? I have also wondered why certain people are more susceptible to depression than others. I am curious about whether genetics play a role in depression and whether certain people are more susceptible to depression because of the environment they live in or because of pharmacological reasons and genes. Throughout our class this year, I have wondered about the role that the I-function plays in depression. I find it interesting that it is possible to wake up one morning and be in a nasty mood even if I want to be in a good mood and my I-function is thinking RhappyS thoughts. Through my research for this paper I wanted to find out more about the different kinds of depression and exactly what goes on chemically in the brain when a person is depressed. I also wanted to do a little research on how depression can be treated. I wanted to try and determine how and when the line of simp...
There are several people every year that are diagnosed with a mental disorder. In the world’s entire population, more than one percent of people have been diagnosed with schizophrenia (Brain and Behavior Research Foundation). When thinking of the billions of people in the world, it might not seem like that many people but once the number of those diagnosed is calculated it seems much larger. Currently there are more than seventy million people in the world that have been diagnosed with schizophrenia, only diagnosed. There are probably several more people who have this disorder and have not been diagnosed or are unable to obtain the resources to be diagnosed.
This paper will examine the complicated roles a counselor has related to the use of prescribed medication in treating mental health issues. The first section will explore the boundaries and ethical implications for a counselor surrounding the recommendation and prescription of psychotropic medication. The next section will include the counselor’s role in client education about medication. The third section will relate to the details of client referral when medication is warranted.
Classical antipsychotic treatments are commonly used to treat schizophrenic patients with major positive symptoms of schizophrenia, such as Thorazine, Haldol, and Stelazine (Gleitman et al., 2011). Antipsychotic treatments are usually administered with a variety of psychosocial treatments including social skills training, vocational rehabilitation, supported employment, family therapy, or individual therapy (Barlow & Durand, 2014). This is to reduce relapse and help the patient improve their skills in deficits and comply in consuming the
Schizophrenia is a disease of the brain that is expressed clinically as a disease of the mind. Once it strikes, morbidity is high (60% of patients are receiving disability benefits within the first year of onset) as is mortality (the suicide rate is 10%). (www.nejm.org/content/1999/0340/008/0645.asp). Because its symptoms and signs and associated cognitive abnormalities are diverse, researchers have been unable to find localization in a single region of the brain. This essay will discuss the symptoms, treatments and causes of schizophrenia.
...ected over another because it has less chance of damaging a diseased liver, worsening a heart condition, or affecting a patient’s high blood pressure. For all the benefits that anti-psychotic drugs provide, clearly they are far from ideal. Some patients will show marked improvement with drugs, while others might be helped only a little, if at all. Ideally, drugs soon will be developed to treat successfully the whole range os schizophrenia symptoms. Roughly one third of schizophrenic patients make a complete recovery and have no further recurrence, one third have recurrent episodes of the illness, and one third deteriorate into chronic schizophrenia with severe disability (Kass, 206).
New drugs are being made in order to address the issue of undesirable and intolerable side effects of conventional antipsychotic drugs. Works Cited Comer, R. J. & Co., Inc. (2011). Fundamentals of abnormal psychology. New York, NY. Worth Publishers Nasar, S. (2001).A beautiful mind: the life of mathematical genius and Nobel laureate John Nash.