Author: Glossary

A selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant medication used to treat depression, generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and social phobia. Marketed under the brand name paxil. An selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) employed for the treatment of mental depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), anxiety, and diverse range of other disorders.…

The atypical parkinsonian syndromes—dementia with lewy bodies, multiple system atrophy, progressive supranuclear palsy, and corticobasal ganglionic degeneration—are often difficult to differentiate from parkinson’s disease and each other. Although these syndromes are clinically distinct, modern immunocytochemical techniques and new genetic findings have revealed intriguing interconnections at a basic molecular level, providing a scientific rationale for lumping…

One of the medication-induced movement disorders, consisting of a rapid, coarse tremor; muscular rigidity; masklike facies; or akinesia developing within a few weeks of starting or raising the dose of neuroleptic (antipsychotic) medication or of reducing medication used to treat extrapyramidal symptoms (EPS). A neurological disorder characterized by rapid, coarse tremor, pill-rolling movements, masklike facies,…

The part of the brain that integrates sensory information from different modalities, particularly determining spatial sense and navigation. Balint sybdrome is associated with bilateral lesions of the parietal lobe. That part of each cerebral hemisphere that lies between the occipital lobe and the central groove. The middle lobe of the cerebral hemisphere, which is associated…

The reduced ability of a muscle to stretch during passive movement that develops during the course of dementia.  

A term for inaccuracies in judgment and perception, particularly in interpersonal relationships, based on the observer’s need to perceive subjects and relationships in accordance with a pattern set by earlier experience. Parataxic distortions develop as a defense against anxiety. According to Harry Stack Sullivan, a hypothesis consisting of an unconscious misrepresentation of reality in childhood…

One of two major subgroups of sleep disorders (dyssomnias are the other major subgroup). Parasomnias are disorders characterized by abnormal behavioral or physiological events occurring in association with sleep, specific sleep stages, or sleep-wake transitions. In dsm-iv-tr, this group includes nightmare disorder, sleep terror disorder, and sleepwalking disorder. A term that refers to a wide…

The study of sensory and motor phenomena shown by some human beings (and some animals) that are posited to occur without the mediation of the known sensory and motor organs. The data of parapsychology are not accounted for by the tenets of conventional science. The study of effects of the mind which appear not to…