Category: A

A recently studied susceptibility gene in schizophrenia. Family-based analyses have revealed a significant association of AKT1 with schizophrenia. This association has been replicated in Asian, European, and Iranian groups.  

An anticholinergic medication used as an adjuvant in the therapy of all forms of parkinsonism and to control extrapyramidal disorders due to neuroleptic drug therapy. The brand name for biperiden.  

A state of apparent alertness with following eye movements but no speech or voluntary motor responses. The condition of being immobile and silent while partially or fully awake. This may be caused by lesions of the frontal lobes of the brain or by hydrocephalus.  

A state of motor inhibition or reduced voluntary motor movement in a person. The symptoms may occur in a patient taking a conventional antipsychotic medication. A lack of voluntary movement, as in Parkinson’s disease. Motionlessness; temporary paralysis; also called akinesis. A loss of normal muscular tonicity or responsiveness. In akinetic epilepsy there is a sudden…

The fear of cats.  

A group of symptoms that appear to represent premonitory signs of full-blown acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), such as generalized lymphadenopathy (disease involving the lymph nodes), night sweats, persistent fevers, persistent cough, infection of the throat, and prolonged diarrhea. Rarely used today, referring to a variety of chronic symptoms that occur in persons who are infected with…

The loss of a previously possessed facility for writing. Loss of ability to convert thought into writing. The condition of being unable to put ideas into writing. Agraphia is the loss or impairment of the ability to produce written language and is the result of acquired central nervous system dysfunction. The term agraphia is often…

The inability to identify a number written on the palm of one’s hand. It is seen in corticobasal ganglionic degeneration, a “parkinson’s plus” syndrome. In ability to recognize letters or numbers drawn by the examiner on skin.  

A neuropeptide produced in the brain (in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus) by the AgRP/neuropeptide Y (NPY) neuron that increases appetite and decreases metabolism and energy expenditure. It is one of the most potent and long-lasting of appetite stimulators. An understanding of the role AgRP plays in weight gain may assist in developing pharmaceutical…