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Behavioral Health Notes

Structures

Central Nervous System

  • brain

  • spinal cord

Peripheral Nervous System

  • nerves and ganglia outside the CNS

  • Somatic Nervous System

    • transmits commands for voluntary movement

  • Autonomic Nervous System

    • controls glands and organs

    • sympathetic nervous system

      • fight or flight

    • parasympathetic nervous system

      • rest and digest

      • storage of energy

Enteric Nervous System

  • nerve cells in the lining of the GI system

  • communicates with the endocrine system

  • 95% of male serotonin

Brain Stem

  • midbrain

  • medulla

  • pons

Endocrine System

  • release of hormones into the bloodstream

  • responses to input from the hypothalamus

Pineal Gland

  • releases melatonin

  • maintenance of sleep-wake cycle

Pituitary Gland

  • master gland

  • stimulates the activity of other glands

Neuron

  • some (cell body)

  • axons (transmit info)

  • dendrites (receive info)

Synapse

  • point of communication between neurons

Neurotransmitter

  • chemical messenger that communicates across a synapse

Receptor

  • where the neurotransmitter binds

Functions

Medulla

  • controls vital functions like heart rate

Pons

  • control the management of sleep, arousal, facial expression

Midbrain

  • controls sensory reflexes, movement, pain

Cerebellum

  • muscle control

    • balance

    • movement

  • cognitive functions

    • language processing

    • memory

Cerebrum

  • initiates and coordinates movement

  • regulates temperature

Reticular Formation

  • controls mood, arousal, and sleep

  • source of serotonin and norepinephrine

Thalamus

  • controls sensation, memory, states of consciousness

  • receives sensory input from most systems

Basal ganglia

  • voluntary movement

  • degeneration in Parkinson’s

  • OCD and ADHD

Hypothalamus

  • involved with motivation and homeostasis

  • regulates temperature, hunger, thrist

  • directs ANS and endocrine system

Hippocampus

  • formation of long term memories

Cingulate Cortex

  • directs ANS

  • plays role in decision making, emotion, anticipation of reward, empathy

Amygdala

  • fear and aggression

Nucleus Accumbens

  • reward and pleasure

Corpus Callosum

  • connects hemispheres

Cerebral Cortex

  • thin layer of gray matter covering cerebral hemispheres

Frontal Lobe

  • primary motor cortex

  • responsible for most complex cognitive processes

Broca’s Area

  • speech production in LEFT hemisphere

Prefrontal cortex

  • planning behavior, attention, and judgment

Orbitofrontal cortex

  • emotion

  • impulse control

Occipital Lobe

  • primary visual cortex

Temporal Lobe

  • primary auditory cortex

Parietal Lobe

  • primary somatosensory cortex

    • involved in neglect syndrome

Glial Cells

  • provide structural matrix

  • clean up debris

  • form blood-brain barrier

  • form scar tissue in the brain and spinal cord

Myelin

  • insulating material covering axons

  • increase conduction

  • prefrontal cortex is myelinated in young adulthood

Terms

Lateralization

  • localization of function in one of the hemispheres

    • language lateralized in the left hemisphere

Action Potential

  • electrical signal arising in neurons axon

  • initiated when the membrane is depolarized to threshold

Resting Potential

  • electrical charge across membrane when neuron is not firing

Biology

  • Biological psychology - aka physiological psychology

    • the study of the biology of behavior

    • focuses on the nervous system, hormones, and genetics

    • examines the relationship between mind and body, neural mechanisms, and the influence of heredity on behavior

  • a biological perspective i relevant to the study of psychology in three ways

    • comparative method: different species of animal can be studied and compared

      • understand human behavior

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

    • inheritance: what someone inherits from it’s parents or mechanisms of inheritance

Issues and Debates

Free will vs. determinism

  • behavior is caused by biological factors over which an individual has no control over

Nature vs. Nurture

  • more towards the nature side, but recognizes that the brain changes with experience in our social world

Holism vs. Reductionism

  • reductionist as it aims to explain all behavior by the action of genetic or biochemical processes

  • neglects the influence of early childhood experiences, conditioning, or cognitive processes

Idiographic vs. Nomotheric

  • nomothetic since it establishes laws and theories about the effects of physiological and biochemical processes that apply to all people

Consciousness

  • awareness of our selves and our environment

  • EEG can measure brainwaves

Alertness

  • awake and aware

    • know where you are

    • what is going on

Daydreaming

  • not as focused

  • occurs naturally

  • can be induced through light meditation

Drowsiness

  • almost asleep

  • semi-aware of the world

  • deep meditation can induce it

Sleep

  • state of unconsciousness

Types of Brain Waves

  • Beta Waves - 12-30Hz

    • associated with normal alertness

    • too long can lead to anxiety and restlessness

  • Alpha Waves - 8-13Hz

    • common during relaxed states

    • disappear as you become drowsy

  • Theta Waves - 4-7Hz

    • seen right after you fall asleep

  • Delta Waves - .5-2Hz

    • difficult to wake up

    • sleepwalking or talking

Sensation and Perception

  • Prosopagnosia

    • a neurological disorder that impairs a person’s ability to perceive or recognize faces, also known as face blindness

  • Sensation

    • the bottom-up process by which our senses like vision, hearing, and smell, receive and relay outside stimuli

  • Perception

    • the top-down way our brains organize and interpret that information and put it into context

  • Absolute Threshold of Sensation

    • the minimum stimulation needed to register a particular stimulus fifty percent of the time

  • Signal Detection Theory

    • a model for predicting how and when a person will detect weak stimuli, partly based on context

  • Difference Threshold

    • the point at which one can tell the difference between two things

Motivation

  • the need or desire to do something

    • biological

    • emotional

    • social

  • an evolutionary perspective

    • instinct (old)- innate “drives” to act a certain way

    • instinct (new) - complex, unlearned behaviors that have a fixed pattern throughout a species

    • Instinct Theory

      • was misguided because the presence of a tendency doesn’t always mean it’s supposed to be there

  • drive-reduction

    • a physiological need, or drive, simply compels us to reduce that need

    • maintaining homeostasis

    • incentives - the positive or negative stimuli that either entice or repel us

    • Ex. hunger pushes to eating a burrito

    • drive-reduction theory - we’re motivated to maintain a balance between stimulation and relaxation

  • optimal arousal

    • motivated to avoid boredom and stress

    • non-sexual sense to not get overstimulated or stressed

  • Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

    • physiological - food, water, air, moderate temperatures

    • safety

    • belongingness and love

    • esteem

    • self-actualization

    • self-transcendence

    • most agree we are driven by three big motivators

      • sex, hunger, and the need to belong

Emotion

  • a complex state of reeling that results in physical and psychological changes that influence thought and behavior

  • associated with a range of psychological phenomena

    • temperament, personality, mood, and motivation

Types of Theories

  • Physiological theories

    • suggest that responses within the body are responsible for emotions

  • Neurological theories

    • propose that activity within the brain leads to emotional responses

  • Cognitive theories

    • argue that thoughts and other mental activities play an essential role in forming emotions

Evolutionary Theory of Emotion

  • emotions have an evolutionary origin

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

  • love and affection lead to people to seek mates and reproduce

  • fear compels people to fight or flee

  • emotions exist to serve an adaptive role

The James-Lange Theory of Emotion

  • physiological theory of emotion

  • emotion occur as a result of physiological reactions to events

  • emotion depend on how you interpret those physical reactions

  • ex.

    • you are walking through the woods and see a grizzly bear

    • you begin to tremble and your heart begins to race

    • the theory proposes that you will conclude that you are frightened

The Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotion

  • physiological theory that disagrees with the James-Lange theory

  • people can experience physiological reactions linked to emotions without actually feeling those emotions

    • heart might race because you have been exercising, not because you are afraid

  • emotional responses occur too quickly to simply be products of physical states

  • emotions result when the thalamus sends a message to the brain in response to a stimulus and at the same time the brain receives signals triggering the emotional experience

Schachter-Singer Theory

  • two-factor theory

  • cognitive theory of emotion

  • suggests that physiological arousal occurs first then the individual must identify the reason for this arousal to experience and label it as an emotion

  • stimulus leads to a physiological response that is cognitively interpreted, labeled, and results in emotion

  • draws from both the James-Lange Theory and Cannon-Bard Theory

Cognitive Appraisal Theory

  • thinking must occur first before experiencing emotion

  • Richard Lazarus was a pioneer in this area of emotion

  • asserts that the brain first appraises a situation and results in a response as an emotion

  • the sequence of events first involves a stimulus, followed by thought, which then leads to the simultaneous experience of a physiological response and the emotion

Facial-Feedback Theory of Emotion

  • facial expressions are connected to experiencing emotions

  • physiological responses often have a direct impact on emotion, rather than being a consequence of the emotion

  • emotions are directly tied to a change in facial muscles

Learning

  • a relatively permanent change in behavior that results from experience

Types of Learning

Classical Conditioning

  • a learning process in which an association is made between a previously neutral stimulus and a new stimulus that provokes a response

  • Pavlov’s dog experiment

Operant Conditioning

  • a learning process in which the probability of a response occurring is increased or decreased due to reinforcement or punishment

  • reinforcement could lead to increases in behaviors where punishments would result in decreases

  • timing of reinforcements influenced how quickly the behavior was learned

Observational Learning

  • a process in which learning occurs through observing and imitating others

  • Social Learning Theory - suggests that in addition to learning through conditioning, people also learn through observing and imitating actions

    • Four elements: attention, motor skills, motivation, and memory

Stages of Learning

  • Acquisition (encoding) - initial period of learning where information is obtained and a response is established

  • Retention (storage) - the transferring whats learned into long-term memory

    • even if it is not used regularly the understanding is retained and not forgotten

  • Recall (retrieval) - involves using the knowledge obtained when it is needed

Important Figures

John B. Watson - suggested all behaviors are a result of the learning process

Edward Thorndike - discovered the law of effect; which states all behaviors followed by positive consequences are more likely to be released than those followed by negative consequences

Ivan Pavlov - research on the digestive systems of dogs led to his discovery of classical conditioning

B.F. Skinner - based on Thorndike’s ideas, focused on how reinforcement and punishing could be used to teach information and modify behavior

Albert Bandura - famous Bobo doll experiments demonstrated how learning could also occur through observation

Memory

  • The structures and processes involved in the storage and subsequent retrieval of information

Encoding

  • When information comes in from sensory input, but needs to be changed into a form that the memory system can cope with for storage

  • three main ways;

    • visual

      • If you see it

    • acoustic

      • repeating it to yourself

      • principle coding system for short-term memory

    • semantic

      • principle coding system for long-term memory

      • by meaning

Storage

  • nature of memory storage

  • where information is stored

  • how long the memory lasts

  • how much can be stored at any time

  • what kind of information is held

  • STM - 0-30 seconds

  • LTM - last a lifetime

Retrieval

  • getting information out of storage

  • STM - stored and retrieved sequentially

  • LTM - stored and retrieved by association

Psychological Diseases and Treatments

Mental Health Disorders - characterized by issues regarding mood, thoughts, and behavior

Depressive disorders and anxiety disorders are among the most common mental health disorders with a higher rate in remals, young adults, and adults who identify with more than two races

Anxiety Disorders

  • disproportionately high levels of fear, anxiety, and avoidance in response to certain objects or situations

  • Panic attacks are common

Mood Disorders

  • conditions that affect mood

  • Depressive disorders - involve sad, empty, or irritable moods with physical and cognitive changes

    • major depressive disorder

    • persistent depressive disorder

    • postpartum depression

  • Bipolar disorders - involve extreme mood shifts between highs of mania and lows of depression

    • manic episode

    • major dperessive episode

    • hypomanic episode

Substance-Related Disorders

  • involve changes in brain chemistry that create a dependence on the substance you’re using

  • people may experience dependence, withdrawal symptoms, and impairments with personal or work lives

    • alcohol use disorder

    • opioid use disorder

    • substance use disorder

Schizophrenia and Related Disorders

  • challenges in one or more of these five areas

    • delusions

    • hallucinations

    • disorganized thought or speech

    • abnormal movements such as catatonia

    • negative symptoms - lack of motivation

  • brief psychotic disorder

  • schizophrenia

  • delusional disorder

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Related Disorders

  • involve elements of thoughts and behaviors or obsessions and compulsions

  • body dysmorphic disorder

  • hoarding disorder

  • OCD

Feeding and Eating Disorders

  • disrupted eating patterns that involve a change in how much you eat or how much food your body absorbs

  • diagnosis requires significant effects on the body, personal, social, work, or school life

    • anorexia nervosa

    • bulimia nervosa

    • binge eating disorder

Stress-Related Disorders

  • Having experienced trauma or extreme stress is an essential part of the diagnosis

  • close links with anxiety disorders, OCDs, and dissociative disorders

  • acute stress disorder

  • PTSD

  • reactive attachment disorder

Dissociative Disorders

  • disruption to the typical states of awareness, impairing the conscious, memory, identity, emotions, and perceptions of oneself and their surroundings

Neurodevelopment Disorders

  • beginin early child development

  • developmental issues that affect the personal, social, school, or work life

ADHD

  • affects behavior

  • Symptoms include ongoing, persistent patterns of inattention, an inability to focus, hyperactivity, or impulsivity

  • hyperactivity - fidgeting, excessive talking, or restlessness

  • impulsivity - difficulty waiting for your turn or giving in to urges

  • Three types

    • inattentive ADHD - difficulty paying attention or focusing on a task, easily distracted, no hyperactivity symptoms

    • hyperactive-impulsive ADHD - extreme, excessive, or disruptive behavior and low impulse control, distractibility, or difficulty focusing is rarely seen in this case

    • Combined ADHD - combines the symptoms of inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive types

Autism Spectrum Disorder

  • symptoms

    • anxiety in a new or unstructured situation

    • difficulty decoding what makes sense to say in conversations

    • stiff or exaggerated body language or hand gestures

  • non-verbal communication

  • stemming

  • echolalia - repetitive speech

  • hypersensitivity

  • hyposensitivity

Personality Disorders

  • persistent pattern of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are different from cultural expectations

  • Antisocial personality disorder

  • avoidant

  • borderline

  • narcisssistic