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Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Persons with this personality disorder have severely overly inflated feelings of self-worth, grandiosity and superiority over others.
Narcosis
A state of stupor, often induced by drugs or other agents.
Negative symptoms
Most commonly refers to a group of symptoms characteristic of schizophrenia that include loss of fluency and spontaneity of verbal expression, impaired ability to focus or sustain attention on a particular task, difficulty in initiating or following through on tasks, impaired ability to experience pleasure to form emotional attachment to others, and blunted affect.
Negativism
Opposition or resistance, either covert or overt, to outside suggestions or advice. May be seen in schizophrenia.
Neologism
In psychiatry, a new word or condensed combination of several words coined by a person to express a highly complex idea not readily understood by others; seen in schizophrenia and organic mental disorders.
Nerve
A bundle of fibers that connect the brain and spinal cord with various parts of the body and through which impulses containing information pass.
Nervous breakdown
A nonmedical term sometimes used by the public to describe an episode of overwhelming distress or depression.
Neuron
A single nerve cell.
Neurotic disorder
A mental disorder in which the predominant disturbance is a distressing symptom or group of symptoms that one considers unacceptable and alien to one's personality. There is no marked loss of reality testing ; behavior does not actively violate gross social norms, although it may be quite disabling. The disturbance is relatively enduring or recurrent without treatment and is not limited to a mild transitory reaction to stress. There is no demonstrable organic etiology.
Neurotransmitters
In the brain these chemicals transfer messages from one nerve cell to another and affect mood.
New Generation Medications
Anti-psychotic medications which are new and atypical.
Nihilistic delusion
The delusion of nonexistence of the self or part of the self, or of some object in external reality.
Norepinephrine
A hormone that regulates blood pressure by causing blood vessels to narrow and the heart to beat faster.
Nystagmus
Involuntary rhythmic movements of the eyes that consist of small-amplitude~ rapid tremors in one direction and a larger, slower, recurrent sweep in the opposite direction. Nystagmus may be horizontal, vertical, or rotary.
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