BioPsych Exam 2

Health Psychology

Health Psychology

is about 40 years old

We now have a longer life expectancy BUT

we’re now living long enough to see ourselves fall apart

What is the leading cause of death in America

Heart Disease

Biological factors

• genetics

• infectious agents

• environmental toxins

• immune responses

Psychological factors

• personality

• attitudes

• stress levels

• behavioral habits

• coping strategies

• reactions to illness

Lifestyle Behaviors can be:

health defeating OR promoting behaviors

Wellness is defined as

“a way of life oriented toward optimal health and well-being”

Illusion of Vulnerability

the tendency for people to underestimate their vulnerabilities

Optimism Bias

the belief that bad things only happen to others

Bio Social Model

health professionals take recent life stressors into account

Wheel of Wellness

Social Ecology Model (SEM)

how peoples environment influences them

Placebo Effect

• when a treatment/substance brings relief because the person believes it will

• can be prescribed

• works best if pills are yellow and expensive 💵

Nocebo Effects

unwelcome side effects of a placebo

Psychosomatic disorders

physical symptoms or disorders that may have neural causes

Classical conditioning

when a natural response is triggered by a formally neural stimulus

General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)

• Hans Selye

• 3 stages that happen when the body is exposed to stress

What are the 3 stages that happen when the body is exposed to stress

• Alarm stage

  • body responds to the initial threat of stress

• Resistance stage

  • body heightens resistance to illness

• Exhaustion stage

  • resistance levels drop and body becomes vulnerable

Autonomic Nervous System

the part of the peripheral nervous involuntary neurons that control bodily functions and operate below consciousness

Sympathetic Nervous System

• ½ of the Autonomic Nervous system that is turned ON

• 🧠 → spine → goes out branching out to every organ

• Epinephrine, norenephrine, and DA are important neurotransmitters for sympathetic “arousal”

• NE and DA turn on the amygdala and off in the prefrontal cortex

Parasympathetic Nervous System

• ½ of the Autonomic Nervous system that is OFF

• it’s chill 😎

Glucocorticouds

• classic stress hormone

• released from the HPA

• classic steroid hormone

• great for mobilizing energy

When the nervous system is triggered what is released

• Glucagon

• Prolactin

• ADH

• endorphins and enkephalins

When the nervous system is triggered what is inhibited

Reproductive hormones

Two exact stressors can…

cause different responses

• the response depends on how a stressor is appraised

What are the different ways a threat could be appraised

• threat vs challenge (primary)

• coping possibility (secondary)

How chronic stress creates CVD

• the stress response causes sympathetic arousal

  • increases in heart rate (HR)

  • increases in blood pressure (BP)

chronic stress + hypertension (raised BP) =

CVD

High BP is

when blood forcefully pushes through veins to the ❤

What happens if high BP (chronic stress) happens frequently

smaller blood vessels bulk up 💪 → causes blood flow problems (vascular resistance)

Blood SLAMMING into the left ventricle results in

left ventricle hypertrophy

What is left ventricle hypertrophy

an enlargement of the heart that causes:

• irregular heartbeat

• not enough blood for bigger ❤

Development of plaques

due to small tears in points of bifurcation

• where branch points of the vessels further ➗ inflammatory response

  • pulls in extra cells (like cholesterol)

Plaques _____ the vessel

narrow

What’s the problem when vessels narrow

it’s harder for blood to get through

If part of plaques breaks off…

a clot is formed (thrombus)

What happens if a clot gets to the ❤

heart attack

What happens if a clot gets to the 🧠

stroke

Left ❤

pumps blood to the peripheral organs

Right ❤

pumps blood through the 🫁

A cardiovascular stress response causes

• increase in HR

  • increase in force

• decreased blood flow to kidneys

What happens to blood when a stress response is triggered

blood is distributed to places that need it

• arteries to muscles dilate so more blood is available

Chronic stress causes ____ to happen frequently which is ____ for the body

increases, bad

No cell in your body is less than 5 cells away from a ______ but the ______ takes up only 3% of body mass

blood vessel, circulatory system

______ is better at predicting CVD than cortisol

C-reactive protein (CRP)

Angina Pectoris

chest pain or discomfort that keeps coming back

The immune system has 2 main characteristics:

• the ability to differentiate self from non-self

• exhibit specificity and memory

What are the 2 types of T-cells

• Helper T’s

  • help with immune responses

• Cytotoxic

  • help with your own cells being altered by things like Cancer

B-cells

produce antibodies

Macrophages

• destroy some antigens

• help T and B cells combat antigens too

PNI was started by:

a behavioral psychologist (Dr. Ader) studying classical conditioning

you can _____ immune responses

condition

immune cells have receptors for:

• E

• NE

• DA

• etc

• cortisol

E, NE, etc, and cortisol are

released as part of the stress response

What are some important studies in PNI

• Rats and control

  • stressor and cancer

• Girl with Lupus

  • Cytoxan

Sensory coding

physical energy from the world → electrical signals → 🧠

Transduction

sensory neurons transform physical energy → neural impulses

Just noticeable difference (difference threshold)

smallest amount of change we can detect

Absolute threshold

smallest amount of sensation we can detect

Sensory threshold

smallest amount of sensory stimulation to activate sensory neurons

Weber’s Law

idea that a new stimulus must differ by a constant fraction from the original to be detected

Signal detection theory

idea that the deduction of a sensory stimulus involves some amount of decision making

Sensory areas of the brain

Olfactory

smell

Somotosensory

touch

Auditory

hearing

Gustatory

taste

Visual

sight

Bottom-up processing ↑

information flows from sensory receptors ↑ smarter processing in the 🧠

Top-down processing ↓

information flows from higher-level brain structures ↓ lower-level brain structures

Sensory compensation

enhancement of 1 or more sense after losing one

Synesthesia

occurs when stimulating one sense triggers another

Trichromatic

a theory of color vision based on the eyes’ red, green, and blue sensitive cones

Opponent-process theory

information about color is processed through signals in the visual receptors in an incompatible manner

Auditory receptors

detect sound waves

Conductive hearing loss

• caused by damage to the ear drum or ossicles

• prevents vibrations from reaching cochlea

Sensorineural hearing loss

• caused by damage to middle ear

• a result of an exposure to loud noise

About ____ of hearing problems are the result of damage to the ____

90%, inner ear

Chemical senses

smell and taste

Olfactory receptor cells

specialized nucleated cells of the mucous membrane of the nose that serve as the receptors for the smell

Olfactory nerve

registers smell by sending impulses for the sense of smell from 👃 → 🧠

Anosmia

loss of sense of smell

Papillae

taste receptors and taste buds

Chemosensation

ability to sense chemicals in the environment that are odorless and tasteless

Kinesthetic sense

a sense that tracks the position and orientation of your body parts

Proprioceptors

sensory receptors found in muscles, tendons, and joints that detect the motion or position

Vestibular sense

a sensory system involving the inner ear that registers the orientation of the head

Touch sensation

result of a number of different types of receptors

Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis (CIPA)

an insensitivity to pain

Gate-control theory

a model that proposes a neutral gate in the spinal cord can modulate incoming pain signals

Pain can be

• chronic

• accute

Analgesis

painkillers

Accupuncture

• temporarily releases pain with tiny needles

  • releases endorphins

  • sends messages through smaller nerve fibers that close senses to the spine

Figure-ground

the tendency to perceive objects as being either in the foreground or the background

What are the Gestalt principles

• nearness

• similarity

• closure

• continuity

Nearness

objects that are close together in space or time are grouped together

Similarity

objects that are similar to each other are grouped together

Closure

the brain will close gaps in order to show us the whole object

Continuity

the brain would prefer to see one continuous movement rather that broken up parts

Perceptual learning

long lasting changes to the brain’s perceptual systems that improve the ability to respond to the environment