HOSA behavioral health - The Mind

Central Nervous System (CNS)

includes the brain and spinal cord

Brainstem

contains midbrain, medulla, and pons

What does the Medulla control?

controls vital body functions (heart rate, breathing)

What does the pons control?

controls the management of sleep, arousal, and facial expression.

What does the cerebellum do?

maintains balance and motor coordination; contains more neurons than the rest of the brain

What does the midbrain control?

controls sensory reflexes, movement, pain

What does the reticular formation do?

controls mood, arousal, sleep; major source of serotonin and norepinephrine

What does the thalamus control?

controls sensation, memory, states of consciousness; receives sensory input from most systems.

What does the basal ganglia control?

voluntary movement; degeneration in Parkinson's, also involved in OCD and ADHD

What does the hypothalamus control?

involved with motivation homeostasis; regulates temperature, hunger, thirst; directs ANS and endocrine system

Homeostasis

Homeostasis is the ability to maintain a relatively stable internal state that persists despite changes in the world outside.

What does the hippocampus control?

formation of long term memories

What does the cingulate cortex control?

direct ANS; plays role in decision making, emotion, anticipation of reward, empathy

What does the amygdala control?

fear and agression

What does the nucleus accumbens control?

reward and pleasure

What is the purpose of the corpus callosum

Connects the left & right hemispheres.

Cerebral cortex?

thin layer of gray matter covering cerebral hemispheres

What does the frontal lobe control?

primary motor cortex and areas responsible for most complex cognitive processes.

What does the broca's area control?

speech production in left hemisphere

What does the prefrontal cortex control?

planning behavior, attention, and judgement

What does the Occipital lobe control?

primary visual cortex

What does the temporal lobe control?

primary auditory cortex

What does the parietal lobe control?

primary somatosensory (ability to interpret bodily sensation) cortex (involved in neglect syndrome)

laterlization

localization of function in one of the hemispheres (language lateralized in the left hemisphere)

Peripheral Nervous System

neves and ganglia outside the CNS ; contains somatic and autonomic nervous systems

somatic nervous system

transmits commands for voluntary movement

What does the autonomic nervous system control?

controls glands and organ; contains sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system

Sympathetic nervous system

fight or flight; expenditure of energy

Parasympathetic nervous system

rest and digest; storage of energy

enteric nervous system

never cells embedded in lining of gastrointestinal system; communicates with the endocrine system; source of 85% boys serotonin

endocrine system

responsible for release of hormones into bloodstream; responses to input from hypothalamus

pineal gland

releases melatonin; maintenance of sleep-wake cycles

pituitary gland

master gland; stimulates activity of other glands

main parts of the neuron

soma(cell body), axons(transmit info), dendrites(receive info)

glial cells

provide structural matrix, clean up debris, form blood-brain barrier; cells that form scar tissue in the brain and spinal cord

myelin

insulating material covering axons; increase conduction

right hemisphere

creative side

left hemisphere

logical side

limbic system

'emotional brain'

neocortex

6 layered structure found in mammals regarding sight and hearing

Biological Approach

Believes us to be a consequence of our genetics and physiology; examines thoughts, feelings, and behaviors from a biological view; all thoughts and feelings have a biological cause

3 biological aspects

comparative method, investigation of inheritance and physiology

comparative method

the study of animals in order to find out more about humans

physiology

how the nervous system and hormones work, how the brain functions, how changes in brain structure or function can affect behavior

investigation of inheritance

what an animals inherits from it parents, mechanisms of inheritance (genetics)

3 ways to find out about the working brain

neuro surgery, electropherograms (EEG's), brain scans

sensation

input about physical world that is obtained by our sensory receptors

perception

process by which our brain selects, organizes and interprets sensations

What are sensory receptors?

specialized neurons that respond to specific types of stimuli

When sensory information is detected by a sensory receptors...

a sensation has occured

Absolute Threshold

minimum amount of stimulus energy that must be present for the stimuli to be detected about 50% of the time; when it is strong enough to excite sensory receptors and send nerve impulses to the brain

Weber's Law

The difference threshold is a constant fraction of the original stimulus. It is the idea that bigger stimuli require larger differences to be noticed.

bottom-up processing

perceptions are built from sensory input

top-down processing

how we interpret these sensation is influenced by our available knowledge and experiences, and our thoughts

sensory adaptation

not all senses result in perception, we often don't perceive stimuli that remain relatively constant over prolonged periods of time

Phenomenology

philosophical study of the structures of experiences and consciousness

easy problem of consciousness

the explanation of how the mind integrates information, focuses attention and allows us to report on mental states

Easy problems are...

physical by nature, falling within the empirical domains of psychology, cognitive science and neuroscience. It can be explained.

hard problem of consciousness

about determining why or how consciousness occurs given the right arrangement of brain matter

inductive reasoning

the 'bottom-up' logic we often use to construct general belief from individual examples (ex. choosing what we wear is based on the weather as well as where we are from).

Physicalism

holds that consciousness is entirely physical; theorists believe that mental just is the physical; mental is nothing more than certain physical situations that obtain certain arrangements of atoms.

Panpsychism

all aspects of reality have some psychological properties apart from their physical properties.

Functionalism

holds that mental states are constituted by the function or role they play in a given system; they believe that mental states exist as relations to other mental states

Consciousness

awareness of ourselves and our environment

States of consciousness

different levels of awareness and they can occur naturally or be inducted by external factors (i.e. drugs, meditation) or internal factors such as our own mental efforts (i.e. meditation).

4 basic states of consciousness

Alertness, daydreaming, drowsiness, sleep

What happens when you shift from one state of consciousness to another?

The brain has sets of neurons that fire rhythmically in your central nervous system leading to neural oscillations or rhythmic patters of firing that we can measure

How are brainwaves measured?

Electroencephalograms (EEG's) measure the neural oscillations of brainwaves.

4 types of brain waves

alpha, beta, delta, theta

Beta waves

fast brain waves of a awake and alert state

Alpha waves

slow brain waves of a relaxed, awake state

Theta waves

very slow brain waves indicating the early stages of sleep

Delta waves

the large, slow brain waves associated with deep sleep

Motivation

the process that initiates, guides, and maintains goal-oriented behaviors. It is what causes you to act

extrinsic motivation

are those that arise from outside of the individual and often involve rewards such as trophies, money, social recognition or praise.

Intrinsic Motivation

are those that arise from within the individual such as doing a complicated crossword puzzle purely for the personal gratification of solving a problem

The major components of motivation

Activation, persistence, and intensity

Activation Motivation

involves the decision to initiate a behavior

Persistence Motivation

the continued effort towards a goal even though obstacles exist

Intensity Motivation

can be seen in the concentration and vigor that goes into pursuing a goal

Instinct Theory of Motivation

suggest that behaviors are motivated by instincts (fixed and inborn patterns of behavior

Arousal Theory of Motivation

suggests that people are motivated to engage in behaviors that help them maintain their optimal level of arousal.

Cognitive Theory of Motivation

suggests that our expectations, thoughts, and our feelings guide our behavior. You will behave in ways you think will produce a desirable outcome.

Drive and Needs Theory of Motivation

suggests that people have biological drives and behaviors that are motivated by the need to fulfill these drives

Incentive Theory of Motivation

suggests that people are motivated for a drive by incentives and reinforcements. It also proposes that people behave in a way that they believe will result in a reward and avoid actions that may entail punishment

Self-actualization Theory of Motivation

contends that individuals are motivated to fulfill their potential in life.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (top to bottom)

self-actualization, esteem, love/belonging, safety, physiological needs

Emotion

a complex state of feeling that results in physical and phycological changes that influence thought and behavior

Psychological Theories of Emotion

suggest that responses within the body are responsible for emotions

Neurological Theories of Emotion

propose that activity within the brain leads to emotional responses

Cognitive theories of emotion

argue than thoughts and other mental activity play an essential role in forming emotions

Evolutionary theory of emotion

Charles Darwin proposed that emotions evolved because they were adaptive and allowed humans and animals to survive

James-Lange Theory of Emotion

proposes that emotions occur as a result of psychological reactions to events; suggests that seeing and external stimulus leads to a psychological reaction. Your emotional reaction is dependent upon how you interpret those physical reactions.

Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotion

suggests that people can actually experienced physiological reactions linked to emotions without feeling those emotions; suggest that emotional responses occur much too quickly to be simply products of physical states.

Schachter-Singer Theory of Emotion

suggests that physiological arousal occurs first, and then the individual must identify the reason for this arousal to experience and label it as an emotion. (a stimulus leads to a physiological response that is then cognitively interpreted and labeled, resulting in an emotion.

Cognitive Appraisal Theory of Emotion

suggests that thinking must occur first before experiencing emotion. The sequence of events first involves a stimulus, followed by thought, which then leads to simultaneous experiences of a physiological response and emotion.

Learning

a relatively permanent change in behavior as a result of experience.

Behaviorism

is a perspective on learning that focuses on changes in individuals observable behaviors - changes in what people say or do (school of thought in psychology that sought to measure only observable behaviors

Classical Conditioning

learning process in which an association is made between a previously neutral stimulus and a stimulus that naturally evokes a response

Operant condition

learning process which the probability of a response occurring is increased or decreased due to the reinforcement of punishment's. the underlying idea of operant condition is that the consequences of our actions shape voluntary behaviors.