Pathophysiology and Psychophysiology

Predisposing Factors: Precipitating Factors:

-Sex: Male -Family history of depression (Paternal
-Age:22yo Side)
-Verbal and emotional abuse by his
father
-Substance Abuse(Marijuana)
-Lifestyle: Cigarette Smoking,
drinking of Alcohol
-Taking of Antipsychotic
medications

Pathophysiology:
Psychophysiology
A. Theory 1
Psychophysiologically labile
1. Potency of all traditional (emotionally unstable) and
antipsychotic medications can be Vulnerable to being inundated by
roughly predicted by their stimuli
dopaminergic blocking capacity (susceptible to being overwhelmed by
people to be dealt with)
2. Mesolimbic Dopamine plays a role in
attentional mechanisms and stimulus
filtering 
 Impairment in an individual’s ability to
screen out irrelevant stimuli and an
Dopaminergic Overactivity
associated inability to habituate to
 externally and internally generated
cues.
When stimulus filtering mechanisms
break down, there is a collapse of the 
information processing capacity of the
Information processing overload
individual with resulting sensory
inundation, cognitive fragmentation, 
and symptoms of thought disorder
Cognitive fragmentation and thought
B. Theory 2 disorder
Temporal lobes are damaged during
fetal development.

Failure to prune excess neurons or to

down-regulate frontotemporal activity.

Perturbs the homeostasis of the

dopamine system
S/Sx: Auditory Hallucinations, Delusion of Grandeur, Restricted affect

Schizophrenia